Farmers are using pesticides worth Rs67 billion per annum in the country out of which 88.3 percent is used in Punjab, 8.2 percent in Sindh while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are using 2.8 percent of the total pesticides.

This was disclosed at the 'Punjab Pesticides Conference 2020' organized by the Punjab Agriculture Department (PAD) here on Thursday. Punjab Minister for Agriculture Malik Nauman Ahmad Langrial chaired the conference and hoped that this conference would help discussing the standards of pesticides, regulatory affairs and other issues being faced by the industry.

He further hoped that the conference would bring the public and private sector on one page to look for the remedies to challenges being faced by the farmers.

The Minister said that 176 pesticide inspectors are performing the duties to check the quality of pesticides being used in the province. However, he said that farmers' complaints about fake or substandard pesticides still persists. He said the present government soon after coming in to power launched a crackdown against adulterated and fake pesticides.

He said that till to date agricultural task force had confiscated adulterated pesticides and fertilizers worth Rs150 million and got cases registered against the culprits. He disclosed that first time in the history government had launched a 'complaint management system' where people can lodge their complaints through SMS/WhatsApp.

Langrial assured that action would be launched against elements involved in heinous business of selling fake pesticides or fertilizers within 24 hours of lodging a complaint.

Secretary Agriculture Punjab Wasif Khursheed said that pesticides do help in lowering the production losses but its usage has also created many issues such as environmental pollution, emergence of resistance in the pests, residue of pesticides in crops, decrease of friendly pesticides, emergence of new pests and diseases.

He said that guidance and training of farmers is the responsibility of the department and the pesticides industry.

Additional Secretary Task Force Agriculture Rana Ali Arshad, DG Agriculture (Extension) Dr Anjum Ali Buttar, Chief Media Adviser Shahid Qadir and a large number of stakeholders attended the meeting.