Commentary published in The Caravan
No Antidote : The new pesticide bill protects industry, not people or the environment.
The article discuss drawbacks of the Pesticide Management Bill 2020 and possible implications on agriculture, health and environment.
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Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on the Bill
The parliamentary standing committee on agriculture released its report on the Pesticide Management Bill 2020 in December, 2021.
It sees the standing committee had considered merely superficial issues related to the bill, which were mostly pointed and criticized by the industry as possible hindrance to smooth business. None of the critical issues raised by PAN India were considered by the Standing committee.
The Pesticide Management Bill 2020
The Union Cabinet of India approved the new Pesticide Management Bill in February 2020. This Bill has pro- visions to regulate industry. However, it does not reflect critical prevailing issues, which are inevitable for reducing and mitigating risks arising from pesticide use. The Bill failed to address post registration risk reduction and mitigation, protection of pesticide users, community and environment. Therefore the Bill could have poor implications on protecting public health and environment; hence requires critical amendments.
PAN India demands critical amendments to PMB2020
In a memorandum submitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, PAN India demands critical amendments to the Pesticide Management Bill 2020. The proposed act should have addressed issues ensuring sustainable agriculture production without harming the environment, ensuring farmer and worker safety as well as safe food production, and gradually eliminating use of toxic pesticides by laying down a path towards wider adoption of non chemical pest management based on agroecology principles in realization of the precautionary principle and assuring the rights guaranteed by the Article 21 of the Constitution of India.
PMB2020 Fails to address critical prevailing issues in the country
The draft bill in its definitions states that ‘a bill to regulate pesticides including their manufacture, import, packaging, labeling, pricing, storage, advertisement, sales, transport, distribution, use and disposal in order to ensure availability of safe and effective pesticides, and to strive to minimize risk to human beings, animals, living organisms other than pests, and the environment with an endeavor to promote pesticides that are biological and based on traditional knowledge and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto’. However, this definition and the provisions in the bill do not reflect a number of prevailing important issues. Some of the critical facts amongst others are discussed here.
