Pesticide Policy

The aggressive media campaigns by pesticide companies do not comply with FAO guidelines for advertising pesticides. Pakistan adopts FAO guidelines on the issues where Pakistani law is silent. The Pakistan law does not clearly outline the guidelines for advertising pesticides. Our law says only that it is a punishable offence if any person falsely represents a pesticide in an advertisement. However, the FAO code states clearly that pesticide industry should ensure that all advertisements draw attention to warning phrases and symbols as used on labels. Labels generally, however, mean little since our rural illiteracy rate is very high. Safety claims with safe use methods and safety warnings should be made part of advertisement by law. As you suggested, it can be made compulsory to run a safety warning after every media pesticide advertisement like cigarette advertisements. Instructions regarding the storage and use of pesticides are very clear in FAO guidelines. It says that persons engaged in spraying pesticides shall use protective clothing and masks. However, persons engaged in spraying rarely use masks. They sometimes, however, use protective cloths. As you suggested, farm owners should be required to provide some kind of health insurance or they should be made responsible for treatment costs in case of mishaps. Generally, the persons engaged in spraying belong to the self-employed landless class. One person sprays many fields a day for different owners. Thus, it is very difficult to hold one owner responsible for any health problem. The owner farmers have little, if any, control over them. Systematic media campaign, however, can be used to enhance awareness about safe pesticide use methods.