Antigua seeking strict legislation to regulate pesticides use

The Pesticides and Toxic Chemicals Control Board is seeking to effect stronger legislation to regulate the use of pesticides in Antigua.

Chairman of the Board Dr Malvern Spencer said there’s a problem with improper use of pesticides and the board is seeking more legislative teeth to address it. He was speaking on OBSERVER Radio’s Voice of the People yesterday, on day two of Pesticide Awareness Week, which runs from September 25 to October 1 under the theme: Save Lives, Read and Understand Pesticide Labels.

"We have issues especially with a particular pesticide which we refer to as Three Steps,” Dr Spencer said. “It’s a nematicide. It’s used to kill nematodes (little worms that penetrate the roots of plants). In fact, they used to use it a lot in the banana industry but it’s more or less outlawed now.”

He added, “What they’re finding now, this is designed to kill nematodes but it kills rats also. And they’re using it as a rodenticide when it was not designed for that purpose. And we have a problem of that in the country.”

According to Dr Spencer, the problem extends far beyond that one product.

"It is something we need to address urgently, even with the legislation and the regulation and the whole question of licensing the pest control operators; we have issues with it,” he noted. “In fact, we had a training course early 2009 and quite a few of them were trained but a significant portion of them failed the exam, and this is a problem and these are things we need to sort out.”

Member of the board Jedidiah Maxim pointed out that proper use of pesticides ties in with the issue of food safety.

"We see our role in the Dept of Agriculture is to educate and advise farmers to the extent that their use of chemicals is as safe as possible to ensure, to some extent, that they do not endanger the lives of consumers of our produce,” he said on the afternoon programme.

The senior agriculture official added that many of the pesticides look similar to household products but are much more powerful, possibly in a fatal way. Hence they should not be stored in the home but on the farm, where users should take care to follow label instructions.

Meantime, Dr Spencer said Board would be introducing a new measure during the pesticides registration process.

"We’ll register some things as restricted use products and these cannot get in the hands of any and any one,” he said.

"For example, you might have a pest control operator, he’s running a business and so he’s using a product that we consider very dangerous and that product, he would not be allowed to sell it to anyone but he can use it in his operations.”