Whitefly pesticide dealers asked to reduce prices

MULTAN: South Punjab Agriculture Secretary Saqib Ali Ateel has asked the whitefly pesticide dealers to reduce prices to meet the financial crisis of growers. He said this while chairing a meeting held at the committee room of Agriculture Secretariat here on Monday.

The meeting discussed the quality of pesticides and their efficacy. The secretary said that cotton was facing a whitefly attack at this crucial juncture and whitefly pesticides distributors should compromise their profit rate and provide pesticides at low rates to combat the challenge. He underlined the need for reducing cost of production of growers and ensuring swift availability of whitefly pesticides.

He said that fighting against whitefly was a national cause and all the stakeholders should work untiringly for the welfare of growers, which was the welfare of the country. He directed the officials to take meaningful measures to ensure reduction in prices of whitefly pesticides. He categorically said that anti-whitefly pesticides were losing quality and standard continuously in the market due to poor efficacy. The chemistry currently available in the market for whitefly control was not more than 48pc controlled in the field, he added. If any chemistry had lost its usefulness, it should not be included in the next advisory, he continued.

He said that high yielding varieties of cotton can be reaped only when pests and diseases were managed in a timely and efficient manner. He said that according to the law, every distributor should also had the facility of ISO certified laboratory and should also have five agri graduates.

He said that no dealer can sell pesticides without a license. Every distributor and dealer should have a record of purchase, sale and stock of pesticides. It was the responsibility of pesticide inspectors and controllers that they should ban all these things and take legal action in case of violation, he told.

He said that the last five years had seen a declining trend in cotton acreage and production so all the stakeholders must work together for the restoration of this most important crop. He directed that the subsidised anti-white fly pesticides should be made available in the market immediately so that the farmers at this stage could take full advantage of the government subsidy for effective control of white fly.

In the briefing, the secretary was informed that the PCPA provides agrochemicals only to licenced dealers of the Agriculture Department. The PCPA was responsible for the actual poisoning in the packaging according to the label, it added.