(a) whether the Government is aware that a number of farmers died due to
spraying of pesticides during the last three years;
(b) if so, whether the Government has made any provisions for licence in order to
spray pesticides;
(c) if so, the steps being taken by the Government to prevent the spray of
pesticides without licence;
(d) whether the Indian Council of Agricultural Research is conducting any
research in this regard; and
(e) if so, the outcome thereof?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRIES
(SHRI TARIQ ANWAR)
(a): No, Madam. There is no report to suggest that a number of farmers died due to
spraying of pesticides during the last three years.
(b) & (c): For farmers, there is no provision of obtaining licence for spraying of
pesticides on their own farmland. However, there is a provision of licence for
commercial pest control operators for use of pesticides under Section 13 of the
Insecticides Act, 1968. As per Insecticides Rules 1971, Commercial Pest Control
Operation means any application or dispersion of Insecticide(s) including fumigants
in household or public or private premises or land and includes pest control
operations in the field including aerial applications for commercial purposes but
excludes private use.
(d) & (e): Indian Council of Agricultural Research took up research to develop
suitable pesticide application technology in order to standardise the available
pesticide applicators and their specifications for various crop canopy volumes and
sizes. The motorized knapsack sprayer run with petrol engine gave the best spread
and coverage of fine droplets that enabled better bio-efficacy of the desired
pesticides to control various types of pests that affected the crop by sap
sucking/tissue boring/tissue chewing or due to infection of diseases/nematodes etc.,
hand operated knapsack sprayers with twin nozzles were found to be the next best to
achieve less advantages of reduced time and cost to cover the large crop area with
high efficiency in terms of pest suppression than the conventional knapsack hand-
operated sprayers.
With the increase in fuel price, conventional power sprayers have been
replaced by kerosene operated imported sprayers. However, for tall tree horticulture
crops, rocker/foot pump sprayer is still used by farmers. Tractor operated sprayers
are much better in performance amongst available ones for row-crops.