February 4, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 2,1423

ISLAMABAD, Feb 3: The government chalks out a comprehensive plan to control dangerous affects of insects, pests and diseases on plants adversely affecting the potential yields of crops and inflicting losses of up to 20-25 per cent yield.

Besides quantitative losses, the pests and diseases deteriorate the quality of product thus reducing the net income of the farmers.

According to official sources the major emphasis has been given to develop control measures for pests and diseases and chemical control was found to be more effective.

The use of pesticides has increased considerably particularly in cotton which is the main cash and industrial crop.

The use of pesticides has increased from 5,000 tons to 44,872 tons during the last five years and it has been realized that excessive use of pesticides is not only hazardous to plants but also injurious to human health and livestock.

Hence efforts were diverted to Integrated Pest Management and special attention had been given on development of resistant crop varieties, use of parasites and predators and development of bio-pesticides.

Successes was achieved in this regard and resistant varieties were available like rust resistant varieties of wheat, blast resistant varieties of rice, leaf curl virus resistant varieties of cotton, bore resistant varieties of gram and others.

Similarly parasites and predators for boll worms of cotton, white flies and aphids, pyrilla in sugarcane and other insects were identified and being reared and released in field for effective, safe and economic control.

Bio-pesticide with Neem base has also been developed and commercialized whereas few more are in the process. As such commendable progress was made in this direction and technologies transferred to the end users.

With recent changes at the global level and restrictions being imposed by WTO, more awareness has taken place among the farming community and associated groups about the adverse effects of pesticides.

It is observed and expected that use of chemicals may decrease in future and shall be replaced by use of bio-pesticides and biological control besides the use of resistant crop varieties. However, it may take some time because of availability of such material and techniques involve.

Efforts are also under way to use plant species as barriers which could serve either as repellent or attractant thus protect the main crop from being devastated.—APP