The Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilizers presented its report on ‘Insecticides and Pesticides – Promotion and Development including Safe Usage – Licensing Regime for Insecticides’ on December 19, 2023. Pesticides are broadly of four types: insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and bio-pesticides. Herbicides kill/control the growth of weeds, and have the …
The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) organised the Third Agricultural Science Congress in collaboration with the Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana, Punjab, on March 12. The three-day-long seminar which concluded on March 15, discussed the changing aspects of agriculture over the past 50 years and emphasised the need to …
Pesticides and industrial runoff all along the river Yamuna have turned its water into poison. This is one of the key findings of Homicide by Pesticides , the latest publication of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi. The book was released by the Leader of the Opposition …
in what may be regarded as the first nail in the coffin for persistent organic pollutants (pops), a regional pact negotiated in Geneva recently proposed to ban or restrict the use of some of them. Setting the ball rolling for a wider global negotiation, the pact, under the United Nations …
how has a tiny country like the Netherlands managed to become the world's third largest exporter of agricultural products? The answer to this also explains the ecological crisis Dutch agriculture confronts today: the intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides. Even though estimates drawn by the Centre for Energy-Saving and Clean …
This paper attempts to present the linkages between irrigated agriculture, human health and the environment based on a review of data available from Sri Lanka.
OVER centuries we have written innumerable laws to protect ourselves from each other's foolishness, negligence, incompetence or evil. Few of those laws forbid anything absolutely. Murder we can get away with, in self-defence or insanity. We can build on floodplains, if we really want to. The law is strict about …
EVERY year, from August 1-7 during the World Breastfeeding Week, there is considerable hype about the usefulness of breast milk over bottle milk. But what if breast milk is full of pesticides
Built around white blood cells and certain molecules in the blood, the immune system helps an organism defend itself against life-threatening foreign invaders. It not only tries to kill external pathogens like bacteria and viruses but also the body's own renegade cells which become cancerous. There are three distinct immunity …
• Young chinook salmon chronically exposed to pesticides in the polluted Duwamish waterway in the US state of Washington have a drastically reduced humoral response (an immunological mechanism). Organophosphate pesticides like trichlorfon and dichlorvos frequently used to ward off ectoparasites and plankton in fish ponds in eastern Europe, have been …
Animals and humans suffering from immunosuppression can also have in some ways a hyperactive immune system. This is because the human body can produce antibodies directed against itself
In the farming regions of central Moldova, pesticides were applied at rates as high as 40 kg per ha from the '60s onwards and through the '80s. This rate of application is almost 20 times the world average. In one survey, researchers detected pesticide residues above accepted standards in 10-15 …
IN SPITE of the worldwide controversy over the continuing use of pesticides, the World Bank (WB) has diluted its norms related to pesticides and pest management policy. The wb's attitude was roundly criticised by a group of over 100 environmental, consumer and developmental organisations belonging to different countries on the …
Thousands of broad-winged species of hawk known as Swainson's hawk, which make their appearance on the dry plains of Argentina every winter, may get a reprieve. Ciba-Geigy, the Switzerland-based chemical manufacturing group has agreed to recall monocrotophos, the pesticide which caused the hawks to die, from the markets surrounding the …
"have you ever known a pesticide to kill anyone?' a neighbour asked me the other day. She is a good farmer. She uses pesticides lightly, only when she really needs them. I pick apples at her place, because on my own, where I use no pesticides, I do fine with …
officials from 87 countries met in Nairobi last week under the aegis of the United Nations ( un) , to deliberate on framing a global convention on the trade of hazardous chemicals and pesticides. The meeting which took place between September 16-20 at the un environment programme ( unep ) …
plant disease management has today become more independent of chemical treatment as its hazardous ramifications have been recognised. Scientists involved in plant protection are concentrating, therefore, on alternate methods to avoid the usage of chemicals. Any method or innovation, however small its impact, should be considered a step forward in …
Despite tonnes of evidence about the ruinous import of pesticides, humankind, especially in the South, are using just that much tonnes of it• "Pesticides dwarf the other environmental risks the us -based environment protection agency (epa) deals with. The risks from pesticides are so much greater because of the exposure …
The Voluntary Health Association of India (vhai) has launched a campaign to ban and withdraw the manufacture, sale and distribution of endosulfan, a deadly chemical pesticide. vhai's call for action is part of a larger international movement seeking to phase out a number of persistent organic pollutants. Endosulfan is one …
