The Pakistan Crop Protection Association (PCPA) has announced to call off their current strike against a campaign being run by the Punjab government to check the business of spurious and adulterated pesticides and fertilisers.
"We are calling off our strike in view of prevailing situation and assurances given to us by Punjab Agriculture Secretary Javed Iqbal Awan," association chief Chaudhry Mushtaq told a press conference here on Tuesday. He was also accompanied by former PCPA Chairman Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, Saad Akbar, Jamshed Iqbal and Chaudhry Iftikhar.
Nevertheless, he said they were withdrawing the strike call only for the next 10 days and would review the situation in PCPA general body meeting scheduled for July 18. He said that they would review how much the government had implemented the assurances given to them by the Provincial Agriculture Secretary.
He said their demands of not registering the FIR under Section 21-A, stopping unjustifiable sampling of pesticides and including a representative of the association, while raiding any factory. Similarly, he said that the Provincial Additional Secretary would review any case before lodging a FIR was also registered.
However, he said that two other issues needed immediate resolution, ie giving level playing field to local formulators of pesticides against foreign formulators and devising laws about pesticide business according to the directives of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Replying to a query, he said that they were taking back their strike decision under the pressure of farmers organisation and that was why they held talks with the Agriculture Secretary against their demand of holding dialogue with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
He said that the time demand that requirement of pesticides should be met at the earliest to get good crops of rice and cotton. He said that supply was already short due to less supply of pesticides from China.
Another PCPA leader Jamshed Iqbal claimed that the campaign against spurious and adulterated pesticides was political motivated. He said that Pakistan's market was of Rs 25 billion and around 100 companies were active in this business.
He claimed that due to efforts of these companies, Pakistan's cotton, wheat and rice production was increased. He said that besides selling pesticides, they also impart knowledge of better and efficient use of these pesticides to the farmers. He also claimed that even according to the results of the government laboratories, only three percent of samples proved unfit. He claimed that fake pesticides stood only at 0.25 percent of the total pesticides sold in Pakistan.
He further claimed that those involved in the heinous business of fake pesticides had gone underground and now the department people were harassing genuine businessmen to score points.
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