/IPS ENVIRONMENT BULLETIN/ PANAMA: In The Pillory For Overdoing Agrochemicals

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Silvio Hernandez

PANAMA CITY, May 31 1997 (IPS) - Announcements that the excessive and indiscriminate use of chemicals in agricultural production here could make the nation’s produce unsellable coincided with the report of an FAO report in Rome declaring the dangers of overuse.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report said most of the developing nations use these products without due control, using techniques used 40 years ago, calling for minimal norms and training to be introduced.

FAO representative Theodore Friedrich said “in many countries the only specialists advising farmers on the technology of applying and using equipment come from the pesticide companies themselves.”

The overuse of the products leads to soil and water contamination, as well as high levels of residues in the produce itself.

Panamanian Export entrepreneur, Luis Barraza, former leader of the Panama Industrialists’ Union, said the country had already started to lose foreign buyers as a result of this problem.

Panamanian agriculture uses an average of three kgs of acrochemicals per head for the 2.5 million-strong population each year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Agricultural Development.

This is an amount more than six times higher than the international average, and nearly three times that of the Central American region.

Barraza pointed out that a cargo of Panamanian beans was rejected by various countries, due to the fact the quantity of agro-chemicals used “had surpassed the permitted limits in these markets.”

However, the same pulses are sold on the local market “a situation which endangers the health of all Panamanians,” he warned.

Similarly, the fruit and vegetables have such a high level of contamination “that even the rural orkers who produce them on the Chiriqui highlands (on the frontier with Costa Rica) refuse to eat them,” said Barraza.

These vegetables include tomatoes for national consumption, which are covered with white marks made by the accumulation of agrochemicals, along with parsley, onion and potatoes, which are liberally doused in the Gramoxone herbicide, banned in the United States and other Northern countries.

Barraza said the parsley plants are fumigated up to 26 times over their 90 day growing period in order to protect them from weeds, insects and pests.

Some 25 distributors import more than 7,000 tons of agrochemicals to Panama each year. A third of these are pesticides and the rest are divided between herbicides, fungicides and fertilisers, plus supplies for other uses.

The extensive list includes 267 different trade marks of toxics for use in agriculture and gardening, which can be bought in supermarkets, DIY stores and even in grocery shops.

The Institute of Agricultural Investigations (IDIAP) said the uncontrolled use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides in agriculture are provoking “deaths by causes which are difficult to define” amongst wage-earners and rural people.

The plants “absorb the pesticides from the soil and concentrate them in their tissues, with the consequent potential danger for people and animals” when the plants are “edible or forrage species,” said the IDIAP.

Barrraza called for urgent measures to control the use of agrochemicals. Otherwise, agricultural production will disappear, overcome by “the weight of the ecological restrictions which are being imposed” in the international markets.

Member of Parliament, Joaquin Franco, who drew up a bill to limit the use of agrochemicals, warned that if the authorities do not take urgent measures, the country could lose its food exports.

Alberto Arjona, of the National Association of Agricultural Supplies Distributors, said “the (distributor) companies are not responsible for this situation.”

Arjona explained the 25 distribution companies include technical assistance programmes to guide their clients in the use of agrochemicals.

As well as preventing the import of products banned in the countries selling them to Panama, Franco’s project will allow the Health Ministry to ban or restrict the use of agrochemicals which are damaging to human health, the flora and fauna.

It will also oblige the distributors to stamp a ticket in Spanish with warnings and directions for h safe use of the product, giving 90 days grace in which to withdraw all the agrochemicals damaging to human health from the market.

Similarly, the bill forces all imported products to be submitted to a toxic residue test in the Specialist Analysis Institute in the University of Panama before going on sale.

Meanwhile, the FAO will be organising regional workshops to inform the governments, farmers and trade sector on how to deal with the issue through the use of more suitable technology and training for farmers.