Monday, 19 August 2013 00:00
-
- {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The numbers have been in for a long time but it is only now that a Parliamentary Consultative Committee has recommended a range of recommendations including banning advertising pesticides and establishing a Technology Council to promote environmentally friendly agriculture. But are the measures adequate?
With the committee report in, Agriculture Minister Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena has sought ministerial approval to give effect to several recommendations. They include strengthening the legal framework to authorise State officials, including those in the health sector and Grama Niladharis, to enable them to take legal action against those resorting to indiscriminate use of pesticides and those supporting this practice. Another is to prohibit the sale and the use of Propenil, Glyphosate, Carbaryl and Chlorpyrifos which have been identified as urinal residues of kidney patients.
An additional move will be to supply drinking water free of insipidity to areas where kidney disease is spreading and imposing a 10% cess on all imported pesticide varieties and the amount of levy to be used for welfare of kidney patients and related research activities.
While one can argue that this is a start, there is a need to fast track implementation simply because Government attention has been so long in coming. On one hand, strengthening legal frameworks and providing the use of alternative fertilisers, developing rice strains which require less fertiliser and are resistant to pests, and lessening environmental pollution will all require months and perhaps years, but on the other, people need answers now.
During the recent Government decision to reduce the fertiliser subsidy, the strongest counter argument was that higher than recommended levels of pesticides and chemical fertilisers are needed if bumper harvests are to be had.
Charging a cess on pesticide imports will have the double edged result of driving up the prices and forcing poor farmers to pay higher prices, while also failing to assure that healthcare facilities will be upgraded. If the Government’s levy on tea is anything to go by, such funds will flow into the Treasury but rarely make it back to the sick farmers.
It is true that the availability of dialysis machines is few and far between. Despite the high number of patients, there are reported to be only around five machines capable of cleaning blood with long waiting lists and high expenses. Unable to meet these weighty costs, most patients turn to Ayurvedic medication, which also results in more expenditure.
Since some victims prefer to avoid conventional treatment methods, they are not recorded by the hospital system, which pundits claim is reason to believe that actual numbers of kidney patients is much higher than official numbers. There are even horror stories that families from Anuradhapura come to Colombo or nearby towns to purchase coffins as local shops have run out of stocks.
The Government is often fond of portraying the farmer as a nationalist symbol of pride. Yet, in this instance, years of suffering have been ignored. It took the death of thousands to get the Government this far. So, it can only be hoped that the latest recommendations together with the pension scheme for farmers, another project stuck fast in the pipeline, are finally birthed to give some solace to a people that have fed the nation.
