After a season of ruined crops, no farmer felt like breaking into a bhangra on learning that the state agriculture department has finally evoked the Insecticides Act, 1968, against a leading Himachal-based firm whose products samples were found to be substandard. For too many, it was a case of too little, too late.Over the past season, an unusually vigilant state agriculture department tested some 2,500 samples of pesticides and weedicides produced by some 200 companies; 150 failed to make the grade. In Ludhiana alone, some 15 samples failed the test; one even recorded zero potency levels.Though the department subsequently cancelled the licences of the dealers, most were able to get stay orders from the court, thus becoming free to sell the suspect products till the case was decided. The firms, meanwhile, sought re-evaluation of their samples, claiming that faulty lab apparatus could have produced inaccurate readings.The Insecticides Act — so far evoked against only one company — however, allows the department to seize stocks after acquiring the requisite magisterial permissions.Even as the wrangle shifts to the charge-and-countercharge mode, hinterland farmers are gearing up for the real battle on the ground. Familiar with fake or substandard pesticides for many years now, their concern centres around how to save the state’s agriculture — and their own futures — from the menace. Substandard pesticide is said to be one of the major factors responsible for the failure of the cotton crop in the state this year.‘‘Big names in the industry, too, produce fake stuff for some quick money,’’ alleges Gursharanjit Singh, a progressive farmer from Faridkot district. ‘‘They send their stuff to small dealers in remote areas. The lower-than-usual prices lure ignorant farmers who cannot tell between the real and the spurious.’’In the Macchiwara block of Ludhiana, sources say, most of the samples that failed the tests came from ‘‘packed units, which had come here straight from the factory’’.There are small-time players in the field as well. ‘‘They buy empty cans of pesticide and weedicide from waste dealers, refill them with spurious stuff and sell them at a quarter of the price of the actual product,’’ alleges Dhandwant Singh, a progressive farmer from Malout.Apart from the immediate financial losses the farmer suffers on account of a spurious product, the crops and the environment are impacted as well. ‘‘When the initial sprays do not produce the desired results, farmers spray again and again to ward off leaf holder or brown plant hopper or stem borer attacks. This adds to the pesticide content in crops and in the environment,’’ reveals a senior state agriculture officer. Shocked by the frequency of such incidents, the state department has now devised plans to check this malpractice. ‘‘We have constituted flying squads who have a target of collecting 3,900 samples between April 2003 and March 2004. Some 2500 samples have already been collected; of these 150 have been found wanting,’’ says a senior official of the department.But what next? It’s a grey area, because it is the Central Insecticides Board that holds the power to cancel the licence of suspect firms. So though action against a dealer is not long in coming, the big fish usually get away during the long and tedious process of guilt-proving. ‘‘So long as the firms are not penalised strictly, the practice will continue,’’ warns Gursharan.
