Somewhere around the world, two to three people are poisoned by pesticides every single minute. The overall death toll adds up to some tens of thousands of people, mainly farm workers, according to the World Health Organization.
In Bangladesh, as in other developing countries, many acutely toxic poisons are still widely used in agriculture despite being banned internationally because of their known effects on human health and the environment. This is an important consideration for World Food Day, which highlights peoples' right to a healthy and secure food supply.
Because of the need to protect agricultural crops against pests and thereby help feed a growing population, pesticide use in Bangladesh has doubled since the early 1990s. However, farmers are failing to take appropriate measures to protect themselves: a recent survey by the World Bank found that almost all farmers sprayed their crops bare-footed, only 2% wore gloves, just 3% wore protective eye-glasses, and only 6% had simple cotton masks to protect against inhalation.
Not surprisingly, many farmers report experiencing symptoms of chronic or acute poisoning from pesticides, including headaches and dizziness, eye and skin irritation or vomiting. Long-term effects on human health can include leukaemia, lung cancer, aplastic anemia, fetal death, hormonal changes, DNA damage and birth defects. Runoff of toxins into rivers can pollute groundwater supplies, and damage both freshwater and marine ecosystems. Some pesticide toxins accumulate in the food chain and have been found at high levels in animals in the Arctic.
In Bangladesh one of our most pesticide-intensive crops is brinjal, the most economically important vegetable for the nation. Yield losses from pests, in particular the fruit and shoot borer larvae, are estimated at over 50% nationwide despite the heavy use of pesticides - surveys suggest many brinjal farmers spray their plants every two days during the rainy months, with as many as 150 sprays during the whole growing season. Anecdotally, there are reports that children are widely employed dipping brinjal fruits in buckets of insecticide, coating themselves and the fruit in toxins.
Other than insecticides there are no other proven successful methods to control fruit and shoot borer in brinjal. Organic and 'integrated pest management' methods have shown promise, but are too complex and time-consuming to be widely successful.
Accordingly, experts at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, in partnership with Cornell University in the United States and funded by USAID, have developed a genetically-modified brinjal which expresses a naturally-occuring insect-control protein called 'Bt' in the fruits and leaves of the plant. This Bt brinjal has been given full approval by the Government, and will be distributed to over 100 farmers in the next growing season following initial tests this year with just 20 farmers.
Some NGOs have expressed opposition to Bt brinjal on the grounds that its effects have been inadequately studied. This is untrue - Bt proteins have been used for over a decade in food and feed crops such as corn, and are widely used in agricultural production worldwide. The Bt protein, known to scientists as Cry-1A, is only toxic to insect pests, and is completely safe for humans and indeed all other non-insect species. Several years of field tests in Bangladesh and India have established beyond doubt that Bt is close to 100% effective in controlling fruit and shoot borer.
This means that farmers growing brinjal in Bangladesh will be able to cut pesticide applications on their crop once they can access Bt brinjal seeds. Overall, it is anticipated that pesticide use can be reduced by 70-90% and farmers’ incomes will rise by an average of 100% due to higher brinjal yields and lower input costs.
This adds up to a projected net benefit to Bangladesh brinjal farmers of 144,000 Taka (USD 1,800) per hectare, and will also mean reduced prices for consumers. The first 20 farmers growing Bt brinjal reported pesticide reductions of 100%, so their fruits were labelled in markets as 'pesticide-free'.
Unfortunately, some NGOs who are ideologically opposed to all genetically-modified crops, seem to share the agenda of the pesticide companies in opposing the introduction of Bt brinjal. They have spread rumour of Bt brinjal having negative health effects when of course it is the pesticide-dependent farming that is the real risk.
Both in India and the Philippines they have successfully blocked farmers from being able to access Bt brinjal seeds which would have enabled a big reduction in pesticide use. In Bangladesh thankfully strong demand from farmers has so far enabled scientists and the Government to pursue this technology further.
Opponents also spread myths about Bt brinjal, claiming that farmers will not be able to save seed and will become dependent on multinational seed companies, and that Bt brinjal will eliminate traditional brinjal varieties. All these allegations are untrue: farmers will be able and encouraged to save seed, which after all have been produced for the common good by Bangladeshi scientists in the public sector, not by private interests. Brinjal cannot pollinate over long distances, so farmers can still grow traditional brinjal varieties nearby without fear of losing their genetic integrity.
In the final assessment, Bangladesh really only has two options. The first is to adopt genetically-modified Bt brinjal in order to slash pesticide use and protect human health and the environment. The second is to continue dosing conventional brinjal with vast amounts of toxic pesticides at serious risk to both farmers and consumers. Activists campaigning against GMOs mean that we will be stuck with the second option - with continued pesticide poisoning, cancers and environmental damage the certain result. For World Food Day I hope that good sense and reason can prevail.
Md. Arif Hossain,
Cornell Alliance for Science, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York, USA
BDST: 1100HRS, OCT 16, 2014
