Hazardous Substances Committee Voted 16/26 Extend No Ban on Paraquat For Two More Years.
15-2-2019–Yesterday at Ministry of Industry 16 of total 26 members of Hazardous Substances Committee voted to remain no ban onfarmer to use/buy/import Paraquat including Glyphosate and Chlorpyrifos for two more years, or until its qualified substitutes found for farmers to use.
While Deapatment of Agriculture will teach and train farmers to use more bio-substance as its substitutes due to Public Health concerned. The decision impacting on about 2.5 families of Thai farmers covering over 5 million people and to have controling measure allow to be used with six kinds of plant, including rubber, palm, cassava, sugarcane, corn and the registered fruit trees.The committee agree with Ministry Agriculture and Cooperative to legitimate Ministry regulation for the guidance of using the toxic substance, including enforcing any relevant agencies to have all the three toxic substance’s trading and purchasing record and informed to the relavant agencies concerned to monitor the volume and the farms using the toxic substance.
On the same day Maerklong Basin group of farmers gather at the first floor of Ministry of Industry urging the committee not to ban using the three substance, especially Paraquat, insisted that it’s the crop production factors to kill the weed grass to prepare clear soil ready for plantation.
Since the activities trying to ban Paraquat began since last two years, the price of Paraquat gradually raised up form 70 baht/liters and now the price is raised up to 140 baht/liters that made farmers facing more cost of production.
There are rumore that during the past two years there is another type of substance called glufosinate that the merchants recommended to farmers market as the better alternative for farmers to use as Paraquat’s substitute, but it’s price is about five time more expensive comparing with Paraquat that has been widely used in the market since about 50 years ago and has been free from the intellectual property enforcement for about 20 years that made farmers can save their cost of production factor and they had learnt how to use the toxic substance safely according to its chemical quification, according to Mr.SuKan SangWanNa Secretary General Federation of Safe Agriculture leading Marklong Famers group to show private laboratory’s test proved that only less than 10% of over 5,000 of their sampling crops was found the three toxic substance renain, while the volume of the substance found was not much.While the alternative BioMixed
substance they were recommended to use as the substitutes of the three substance they has been using were not found any research confirmed clearly that it’s have chemical function qualified in result as the farmers required for their plantation.
In the other way, The NGO comprised of such as Health Consumer Protection Foundation, Bio-Thai., etc including Thai Health Office (Sor.Sor Sor.),Public Health Ministry’s Food and Drug Organization kept strongly pushing the
Hazardous Substances Committee and state agencies including urging Office of The Ombusman to enforce to ban all the three chemical substance farmers using for their plantation, informed that there might have some conflict of interest among Hazardous Substances Committee’s members that made some of them kept denied voting to ban the toxic substance.
There were 16 members of Hazardous Substances Committee voted not yet to ban the three toxic substance and extend two more years for farmers to learn using the substance in limitation.While five members of the committee voted to ban and the other five made no vote, according to Chairman of Hazardous Substances CommitteeMr.Apichin Chotikastian deputy permanent Secretary, Ministry of Industry.
