Sri Lanka agrochemical firms forecast pesticide shortfalls

A group of agro firms have warned that Sri Lanka may run short of pesticides for the next growing season unless a controversy over the presence of arsenic is resolved quickly with independent testing.

'Croplife Sri Lanka' an industry grouping representing 26 agrochemical firms said arsenic is not an active ingredient in any pesticide marketed by them.

Researchers at Sri Lanka's Kelaniya University have said that they found arsenic in pesticides, leading to speculation that they may be present in food and also causing diseases.

Indika Gunewardene, representing Croplife Sri Lanka said Sri Lanka's customs authorities have detained 13 containers of chemicals.

Trace Amounts

However trace amounts have been discovered in one weedicide sold under two brand names and one pesticide by Sri Lanka's Industrial Technology Institute of Sri Lanka (ITI) after testing 23 different products.

But Rohitha Nanayakkara, a member of the association said the amounts are not high enough to harm humans. There are permitted levels of arsenic even in foods.
But the firms have stopped importing and distributing the chemicals.

Gunewardene says each year Sri Lanka consumers about 7,000 tonnes of agro chemicals valued at about 9,000 billion rupees and chemicals need for the next growing season which is about to start has not been ordered from suppliers.

He said firms have so far not ordered chemicals due to uncertainty and there may be shortages of agro chemicals for the next growing season.

Advocates of organic farming have claimed that Sri Lankan farmers have got used to applying pesticides at different points in a crop growing cycle without actually testing whether pests were present or not.

With the correct advice and techniques to measure the levels of the presence of pests, chemical use can be cut down, they have claimed.

Divine Science

Meanwhile the agro firms say they want to sue the researchers.

The academics have also accused of being involved in an "international conspiracy" to discourage rice eating, by xenophobic sections of the ruling administration.

Such actions however can discourage scientific research.

The researchers have also not helped their case in the eyes of observers. Nalin de Silva, a professor at Kelaniya University, has been quoted as saying that the researchers who found arsenic were guided in their work by a god.

The Sri Lanka's Association for the Advancement of Science meanwhile has called on the researchers to subject their findings and methodology to peer review and publish it, so that others can reproduce their experiments.