MULTAN, July 3: The Federal Law Department has been reportedly sitting on amendments to the Agricultural Pesticides Rules proposed about a month ago to remove flaws in the laws regulating the pesticides business in the country.

The amendments were proposed by the Agricultural Pesticides Technical Advisory Committee, Federal Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock, in its 36th meeting held on May 31, 2003, in Islamabad with Minfal secretary Salik Nazeer Ahmed in the chair.

The Aptac meeting had reviewed and approved proposals put forth by its sub-committee formed on the orders of Federal Food Minister Haji Sikander Hayat Bosan on March 31, 2003, to look into the matters of sale, packing and over-pricing of pesticides.

According to a Minfal official, the need to look into the alleged irregularities in the pesticides business was felt on the complaints by farming community against the sale of adulterated, under-strength and substandard pesticides that not only ruined the rural economy but also landed the farmers in a no-win situation.

As per minutes of the 36th Aptac meeting, the following amendments to the Agricultural Pesticides Rules were approved for enforcement:

The importers/formulators should themselves undertake repacking/refilling of pesticides imported or formulated locally at a plant under their strict supervision, responsibility and label for quality and then pass on to distributors in retail packing with effect from Nov 1, 2003.

The importers should give legal warranty to distributors or dealers, as the case may be, at the time of delivery and the distributor whenever involved should give warranty to the dealers.

All registered/permitted pesticides may be sold under local brand names.

A particular pesticide should be sold in packing containing uniform quantity either of 250ml, 500ml or 1,000ml.

The price mentioned on the label should be the same as that of written on the invoice.

Besides, the committee standardized strengths of various registered pesticides with a direction that all other formulations of these products would be withdrawn. The registrants, however, were given an opportunity to replace their existing formulations with the approved ones.

The Aptac meeting also directed that the label should indicate the name of each pest instead of groups like Bollworms, Foliar diseases etc. For herbicides, name of each weed should be indicated instead of broad-leaved weeds, grasses and sedges.

The committee had also approved registration of 26 of the 27 new pesticides/herbicides forwarded to it for consideration. The only disapproved item was Pujing (Fenoxaprop-p-ethyl) in view of an inquiry pending with the National Accountability Bureau (see Dawn issue of Feb 28, 2003) for irregularities in its import as free samples and then its commercial marketing.

The approved amendments to the Agricultural Pesticides Rules were referred to the Federal Law Ministry to have its opinion about any legal hitch in implementing the new rules. A Minfal official said usually the law ministry replied within 48 hours of any matter referred to it for legal feedback but in the case of amendments to the pesticides rules there was, so far, a silence.

An Aptac member, who did not want to be named, said the delay in issuing the SRO regarding approved amendments to the 36th meeting of Aptac was giving opportunity to the people involved in the pesticides business to misinterpret the decisions. He said the people in pesticides business had earned exorbitant profits on the cost of growers’ returns due to the earlier flawed rules to regulate the business.

He said for instance one of the two influential associations of pesticides importers and formulators had recently objected to the warranty clause claiming that its members could be held responsible for the acts of their dealers.

He questioned that when they would be delivering pesticides to their registered dealers according to batch numbers then why did they want to escape warranty to ensure supply of standardized quality pesticides to farmers.

It may be mentioned that the declared volume of the annual turnover of the pesticides business in the country ranges from Rs12 billion to Rs 14 billion. Of which, pesticides of Rs9 billion are consumed only for the cotton crop.