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| A farmer sprays pesticide in a paddy field in Ngoro village in Mojokerto, East Java, in this file photo. According to the People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty (KRKP) Indonesian farmers use pesticides with alarming frequency — an average 5.7 times per growing season. (Antara Photo) |
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Indonesian
farmers use an alarming amount of pesticides — including some with illegal
toxic chemicals — on their crops, the People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty
(KRKP) said on Thursday.
The NGO
cited a 2011 survey of 306 farmers in Central Java that found that farmers used
pesticides an average of 5.7 times per growing season.
“That is a
very high use for farms,” KRKP official Said Abdullah said in Jakarta on
Thursday.
Pesticides
are big business in Indonesia. The local market reaches about Rp 6 trillion
($654 million) a year, Said said. That market includes 350 brands of
fungicides, 600 brands of herbicides and 800 brands of insecticides registered
with the Indonesian authorities, according to Ministry of Agriculture’s
Pesticide Commission numbers.
And these
figures don't even include products that enter the country illegally, Said
said.
“Between 10
and 12 percent of pesticides circulating [in Indonesia] are illegal,” he said.
Many of
these chemicals contain harmful substances like organochlorine and
organophosphate, Said said.
The one
chemical, organophosphate, is considered hazardous, even in low doses, and its
use is highly-regulated, or banned outright, in 23 counties. Organochlorine was
present in the pesticide DDT, a chemical that caused massive ecological damage
in the United States before its use was banned in the 1960s.
He called
on farmers to adopt more environmentally-conscious and sustainable farming
methods.
BeritaSatu
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