GS Paper 3
Syllabus: Agriculture
Source: Indian Express
Direction: This was an opinion article in The Indian Express, the author gave few suggestions on how to reduce chemical fertilizers. You can note down these points and present them as suggestions/ way forward in your answer.
Context: Pests and diseases have developed resistance to the existing pesticide applications, requiring stronger, more toxic responses every passing year.
Considering the genetic altering impact on the human body and biodiversity loss, reduction in pesticide usage should have become a national priority
Ways we can reduce farm chemical input:
- Business model of the farm chemical input industry must transform to become a service industry: 10 per cent of farm chemical input sales of each seller could be in the form of services (spray on farms). Each following year, the seller would mandatorily increase the services by an additional 10 per cent, till the business model had become one of the services contracted, and not of farm chemical inputs sold.
- Shopkeepers should report each sale of farm chemicals to the government in real time.
- Mandatory QR code on each farm chemical package: Bayer, the world’s largest seed and pesticide company has started to print a QR code on every pesticide package.
- An independent regulator: Safety data generated by the industry is practically taken at face value when regulatory approval is given. But volunteerism is no substitute for regulation.
Insta Links:
reforming the fertilizer sector
Prelims Link:
- Committees related to controlling chemical fertilizers.
- Green Revolution
Mains Link:
Q. Account for the use of chemical pesticides, insecticides and fertilizers in Indian agriculture and its impact on human health. 10M
