FORESTS and savannahs are sources of living for a wide range of animals and insects. Plants provide food to herbivorous animals and insects, which are eaten by carnivorous animals and insects generally considered as friends of farmlands. In most natural systems, the number of animals and insects from each group are kept in check by complicated interactions between the organisms present. Whenever this balance is upset, pest numbers increase rapidly resulting in pest outbreaks.

Earthworms are known to be the best friends of farmland as they improve soil health by circulating the soil underneath and on death turn into manure for plants. The holes that they drill in the soil allow nitrogen and other gases to reach the roots of the plants. These holes also sustain water and moisture in the land for a longer period. Deep tillage techniques, however, are destroying their abodes in lands as use of tractors with deep tilling is almost reaching saturation point in the country.

The use of Lambda Cyhalothrin and other such formulations to combat locusts will also disturb soil quality as well as kill insects, bacteria, frogs and other natural enemies of crop-damaging pests

There are other birds, insects and spiders that help farmers by either consuming the pests and rodents that damage crops or by playing an active role in the pollination process. Honeybees are excellent in maintaining the ecosystem by pollinating flowering plants and cultivated crops. But, large scale deforestation and unseasonal rains have badly hit bee colonies and the country is also losing its honey export business.

Overuse of pesticides is, however, the major factor threatening all these friends of farmers. Cheap imports of chemicals from a neighbouring friendly country used in the formulation of pesticides are encouraging the unhindered use of farm drugs. So much so that the number of insecticide sprays for the cotton crop has gone up from three a couple of decades ago to 18-plus per crop as the worth of the local pesticides industry has become Rs80 billion and there is no mechanism to check the chemical residual effect on human health as well as on flora and fauna.

Large swarms of desert locusts are expected to reach the country from Africa in the third week of July. Authorities are prepared to welcome the flying insects with the aerial spray of Lambda Cyhalothrin and other such formulations. This is giving nightmares to environmentalists and lovers of nature. The huge quantities of poisons used to kill the invaders would ultimately disturb the environment and soil quality as well as eliminate insects, bacteria, frogs and other natural enemies of the pests that damage crops.

Aamer Hayat Bhandara, a progressive grower and seed developer, bemoans that while other pesticides target the very pest these are formulated for, Lambda Cyhalothrin is such a strong poison that it leaves nothing on the land and eliminates not just locusts or other anti-farming insects but all honeybees, spiders, beetles, rodents, frogs and even snakes, which help farmers by consuming mice. The aftereffects of the use of the poison will continue to be felt in the coming years, he adds.

Though the use of the anti-locust spray is compulsory, it will definitely hit the countryside’s flora and fauna, says Dr Jalal Arif of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. A focal person for research and development in the anti-locust committee formed by the Federal Ministry of Food Security, he calls for a biological solution to this and other pest problems that are being handled through the use of pesticides. Finding out the natural enemies of pests, selecting the most appropriate crop cultivars, conserving natural pest enemies through cultural means and ensuring that pest-management techniques do not disrupt these natural pest enemies is the four-step biological solution he suggests in this respect.

Otherwise, he warns, the use of chemicals will continue killing ladybirds and ground beetles, pirate bugs, hoverflies, predatory mites and wasps, spiders and parasitoids that are so beneficial to agriculture. He laments that there is no accredited residue analysis laboratory in the country to check the level of the residue in the farm produce as analysis of banana, mango, apple and other fruits show much higher than the permissible levels of residues.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, July 20th, 2020