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Who stands to gain from generic pesticide ban?
By Bivash Mukherjee |
April 25, 2011, Monday
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IS the worldwide campaign to ban endosulfan, a pesticide widely used in developing countries, part of a larger conspiracy to promote patented products, or are there genuine health and environmental issues we need to worry about?
Quite possibly, it could be both. And like the great nuclear debate, it is becoming a dilemma of Catch-22 proportions.
Sometime this week in Geneva, 172 countries who are signatories to The Stockholm Convention, will seal or secure the fate of the generic endosulfan. The World Health Organization has classified it as "moderately hazardous" but the European Union and its allies are pushing to have it re-classified as a "persistent organic pollutant" (POP), which effectively ensures that it will be banned the world over.
Developing countries like China and India are opposed to the ban, with some insisting it is part of a European agenda to secure a market for its patented products.
"Endosulfan is now off patent and brings in far lower margins. So they want to push substitutes which offer greater premiums," Anil J. Kakkar, vice president (marketing) at Ecel Crop Care Ltd, one of the three companies in India that manufacture endosulfan, has been quoted as saying.
"The other issue of banning endosulfan is that its substitute, neo nicotinoids, is three times costlier and has been found to be harmful to pollinators," Kakkar says.
Ironically, endosulfan was manufactured and used in Europe until 2005 and exported out of the continent for over 55 years. It has been widely used by farmers in developing countries like China, India, Pakistan, Argentina and Brazil for decades to protect crops from pest attacks. Even Italy, despite the ban, reverted to using endosulfan during a pest attack on hazelnut crops in 2008.
China first started using the insecticide on cotton in 1994, and on wheat, tea, tobacco, apples and other fruits sometime in 1998.
Affordable prices
The province with the highest usage of endosulfan is reportedly Henan Province, followed by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Shandong, Hebei and Anhui provinces. In China, endosulfan is sold for an affordable 25-32 yuan (US$3.84-4.91) per liter. Its worldwide usage is estimated at 40 million liters, which makes it one of world's top five generic agricultural insecticides.
A ban on its use could hurt Chinese producers to the tune of 100 million yuan (US$15 million) per year, according to Li Maoqing, a quality control director with Jiangsu Anpon Electrochemical Co Ltd. He also insisted that it would lead to job losses of around 300 personnel in his company alone.
About 60 countries have already banned the use of endosulfan, of which 27 are EU members and a few others with negligible use of the product. The 21 African nations that have supported the ban are largely dependent on Europe for their farm exports.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that endosulfan poses unacceptable risks to agricultural workers and wildlife. The pesticide has also been linked to cancer and reportedly has long-term effects on the immune and reproductive systems.
Chen Zongmao, a professor with Tea Research Institute and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said his institute had carried out extensive soil residue tests and found "no problem at all."
"The problem (with Europe) is ecological," Chen said. "Europe and America have carried out analysis on the effect of endosulfan on birds, rabbits and fish. We use it largely on tea here but the key point is, we don't export much tea."
Chen said his institute was already looking at alternatives for the tea industry, which Li said was likely to be five times costlier than the generic endosulfan.
Industry experts have argued that if ecology was the main reason for the EU to push for a ban, then its alternatives have fared far worse. There have been over 50 substitutes suggested for endosulfan but none of them have made the grade. In fact, wherever neo nicotinoids have been used, it has resulted in the systematic annihilation of the pollinating honeybees.
The alternative could well lie in pesticide-free organic agriculture, and its supporters have been pushing hard its case. But even the diehard among them will admit that it may be well-nigh impossible to feed the billions on this planet, just as alternative energy sources are unlikely at any time to meet the global demand for clean power.
With no viable or suitable alternatives in place, it would be irresponsible to force the ban of a pesticide on countries that are at a greater risk from pests and insects, especially in tropical countries.
(Bivash Mukherjee is a writer at Shanghai Daily.)
Quite possibly, it could be both. And like the great nuclear debate, it is becoming a dilemma of Catch-22 proportions.
Sometime this week in Geneva, 172 countries who are signatories to The Stockholm Convention, will seal or secure the fate of the generic endosulfan. The World Health Organization has classified it as "moderately hazardous" but the European Union and its allies are pushing to have it re-classified as a "persistent organic pollutant" (POP), which effectively ensures that it will be banned the world over.
Developing countries like China and India are opposed to the ban, with some insisting it is part of a European agenda to secure a market for its patented products.
"Endosulfan is now off patent and brings in far lower margins. So they want to push substitutes which offer greater premiums," Anil J. Kakkar, vice president (marketing) at Ecel Crop Care Ltd, one of the three companies in India that manufacture endosulfan, has been quoted as saying.
"The other issue of banning endosulfan is that its substitute, neo nicotinoids, is three times costlier and has been found to be harmful to pollinators," Kakkar says.
Ironically, endosulfan was manufactured and used in Europe until 2005 and exported out of the continent for over 55 years. It has been widely used by farmers in developing countries like China, India, Pakistan, Argentina and Brazil for decades to protect crops from pest attacks. Even Italy, despite the ban, reverted to using endosulfan during a pest attack on hazelnut crops in 2008.
China first started using the insecticide on cotton in 1994, and on wheat, tea, tobacco, apples and other fruits sometime in 1998.
Affordable prices
The province with the highest usage of endosulfan is reportedly Henan Province, followed by the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Shandong, Hebei and Anhui provinces. In China, endosulfan is sold for an affordable 25-32 yuan (US$3.84-4.91) per liter. Its worldwide usage is estimated at 40 million liters, which makes it one of world's top five generic agricultural insecticides.
A ban on its use could hurt Chinese producers to the tune of 100 million yuan (US$15 million) per year, according to Li Maoqing, a quality control director with Jiangsu Anpon Electrochemical Co Ltd. He also insisted that it would lead to job losses of around 300 personnel in his company alone.
About 60 countries have already banned the use of endosulfan, of which 27 are EU members and a few others with negligible use of the product. The 21 African nations that have supported the ban are largely dependent on Europe for their farm exports.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that endosulfan poses unacceptable risks to agricultural workers and wildlife. The pesticide has also been linked to cancer and reportedly has long-term effects on the immune and reproductive systems.
Chen Zongmao, a professor with Tea Research Institute and Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said his institute had carried out extensive soil residue tests and found "no problem at all."
"The problem (with Europe) is ecological," Chen said. "Europe and America have carried out analysis on the effect of endosulfan on birds, rabbits and fish. We use it largely on tea here but the key point is, we don't export much tea."
Chen said his institute was already looking at alternatives for the tea industry, which Li said was likely to be five times costlier than the generic endosulfan.
Industry experts have argued that if ecology was the main reason for the EU to push for a ban, then its alternatives have fared far worse. There have been over 50 substitutes suggested for endosulfan but none of them have made the grade. In fact, wherever neo nicotinoids have been used, it has resulted in the systematic annihilation of the pollinating honeybees.
The alternative could well lie in pesticide-free organic agriculture, and its supporters have been pushing hard its case. But even the diehard among them will admit that it may be well-nigh impossible to feed the billions on this planet, just as alternative energy sources are unlikely at any time to meet the global demand for clean power.
With no viable or suitable alternatives in place, it would be irresponsible to force the ban of a pesticide on countries that are at a greater risk from pests and insects, especially in tropical countries.
(Bivash Mukherjee is a writer at Shanghai Daily.)
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