Nellore: Banned herbicide glyphosate's sale rampant

Nellore: Sale of hazardous glyphosate-based herbicide is rampant in the district despite the state government banning the chemical in 2018.

The broad-spectrum herbicide considered to cause cancer, damage vital organs like kidney and liver among others. Agriculture and vigilance staff conducted checks and found huge stocks of glyphosate-based weed killer with various dealers in the district in recent times.

Experts say its use in food cycle may lead to various forms of serious ailments when a farmer sprays the chemical on the crops. Consuming it, even in lower quantities, causes various diseases including non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of cancer. Inhaling the chemical is also fatal sometimes, agronomists say.

Many countries across the globe banned the use of weed killers based on glyphosate in view of their adverse impact on human health. The Union agriculture ministry banned these products on August 8, 2018, through a gazette notification which includes 18 neonicotinoid pesticides. While 12 of them were banned with immediate effect, six will be phased out by December 2020.

Subsequently, the state government also imposed restrictions on usage of glyphosate formulations in the state. Joint directors of agriculture were instructed to stop the sale of glyphosate formulations at all points and to return the entire stock to the companies concerned and remove entries from the licences issued in the districts.

"Even though herbicide-tolerant (HT) seed varieties (These crops are designed to tolerate specific broad-spectrum herbicides, which kill the surrounding weeds, but leave the crop intact) are available in the market, some 30-40 per cent of farmers are still using the chemical routinely, preferring the normal varieties.

This is more prevalent in cotton and tobacco growing areas. If they use HT seed, they can use glyphosate-based herbicides without causing harm to the crop," said an official from the agriculture department.

Vigilance personnel have been conducting checks on pesticide shops in the district for the last few days for any sale of the banned chemical. Vigilance teams seized around 4,000 litre stock from a warehouse located in Inamadugu Centre and registered case against the traders.

They also found many shops that received stocks from Guntur and other places sold them to farmers.

They unearthed stocks in Nellore, Kovur, Sangam, Kavali, Dagadarthi, Kaligiri and other mandals. Vigilance officials found transactions of more than 20,000 litre in the entire district.

Joint director of agriculture C Ananda Kumari said that vigilance and agriculture officials have been conducting checks in the district.

K Dhananjay Reddy, deputy director of agriculture department (Plant Protection) said that there were 10 dealers in the district and criminal cases were being registered against them on the sale of the glyphosate-based products.