Summary:
Pune: The state agriculture department banned five pesticides, for two months, to prevent accidental inhalation while spraying the farms.In the past four years, 272 farmers have died and thousands of others have fallen ill following accidental pesticide inhalation in the state. Rajaram Deshmukh, the former vice-chancellor of the Mahatma Phule Krishi Vidyapeeth, Rahuri, said, “The Centre needs to step in and ban these pesticides permanently. Our flying squads and officials will conduct random raids,” said Sachindra Pratap Singh, the agriculture commissioner.Meanwhile, agriculture experts and farmers said the government should ban these pesticides permanently. Farmers in the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions usually spray these pesticides on cotton and soybean crop and as a result, most of the pesticide-related farmer deaths have been reported from these regions. Adequate research has been done by agriculture scientists to make available viable alternatives to the chemical pesticides, but the government somehow failed to promote them.”.