Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Pesticide regulations for developing countries

How pesticides are handled in developing countries:
Pesticides have a dilemma nature and because of this nature to use them safely there must be done lots of research and there should exist lots of laws and regulations and enforcement, now let say that this is followed correctly in developed countries where the industry exists but the story and scenario is quiet different in developing countries. In most of these developing countries there are no research/ regulations or if there is it is not followed / enforced absolutely and this is the problem and because it deals with the life of people and health of the environment it is a real big problem. When it comes to spraying technology and worker protection it is never practiced by ordinary farmers in these countries. These are my personal experiences/ observations during more than 35 years being involved in pesticide science work. Living more than 15 years in Mazandaran, Golastan and Gillan the three beautiful Northern Provinces of Iran by the Caspian Sea I observed so many cases of pesticide intoxication. This is because people do their spraying without any protective clothing, most of times with bare foot and body because of hot weather and with any type of spraying equipment that they can find and they use lots of pesticides in their rice paddies, cotton fields and citrus orchards etc.

So as a result where there is no scientific research and laws and regulations as in developing countries then most use of pesticides should stop because no rules are followed