Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Chairman Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) Brigadier (retd) Aslam Khan has said the poor quality of agricultural inputs are posing a major threat to farmers, their livestock and the general population consuming their products. In a statement issued here on Sunday, he said that the agriculture and livestock sector is being destroyed because of substandard seeds, unhealthy pesticides and herbicides.
Brigadier (retd) Aslam Khan said that masses, farmers and livestock are suffering from various diseases due to hazardous agricultural inputs, therefore production and import of such products should be stopped immediately.
He said that there is an urgent need to ban the manufacture and import of cancer-causing pesticides that are destroying the lives of farmers and consumers.
Chairman PEW said that agricultural inputs banned in other countries are openly manufactured and imported in Pakistan which amounts to playing with the lives of people.
Roundup, an agrochemical manufactured by a well-known multinational company, is being sold in Pakistan, which is banned in 20 countries because of its harmful effects.
This medicine is used to destroy unnecessary herbs and grasses, but its harmful effects do not spare farmers and their livestock.
In the United States, those affected by this drug have filed 47,000 lawsuits against the company while various civil society organizations are also assisting the victims, he said.
Aslam Khan said that the government should immediately analyze this drug and ban it like twenty other countries so that farmers, their livestock and consumers can be protected from its harms.
