Press Release 99/32
PRODUCING MORE COTTON WITH LESS PESTICIDES:
EU FINANCES 12-MILLION-EURO PROJECT IN ASIA
Rome, 26 May -- The European Union will finance a 12 million-Euro ($12.7
million) project on environmentally-friendly cotton production in Asia. The
programme will be carried out in Bangladesh, China, India, Pakistan, Philippines
and Vietnam by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the agency
announced today.
Globally, more insecticides are used on cotton than any other crop, according
to FAO. Global sales in insecticides amounted to about $12 billion in 1995
with cotton accounting for $1.8 billion or 14 percent. With China, India
and Pakistan, the project includes three of the four largest cotton producing
countries, growing 46 percent of the world's cotton. Over two-thirds of the
world's cotton area treated annually with insecticides is in India, China
and Pakistan. These countries are regarded as major markets by the international
and domestic pesticide industry.
The project is designed to reduce insecticide use by farmers by more than
50 percent, while increasing production. Pilot projects financed by the Asian
Development Bank in Pakistan, India and China have shown that cotton farmers
reduced the use of pesticides and increased yields at the same time, FAO
said.
In the next five years, around 90 000 small cotton farmers will be trained
in Integrated Pest Management (IPM). In about 3,800 field schools farmers
will discover how their cotton eco-systems function, including how pest
populations change. Farmers will learn to ecologically and economically manage
pests such as leafhoppers, whiteflies and bollworms.
Farmers will learn more about cotton agronomy, cotton agro-ecosystems and
alternative pest control techniques. They will be trained in how to physically
remove and destroy pests, build up beneficial predators, and rotate and diversify
crops. The aim is to keep the balance between pests and their natural enemies
and to keep the spraying of expensive and potentially damaging and dangerous
insecticides to an absolute minimum. The project will also promote farm-oriented
local research.
Women farmers, in particular, will be encouraged to participate in the training
activities to enable them to take a larger role in pest management decision
making.
"Farmers will finally learn that an unsprayed cotton field is not necessarily
devastated by pest outbreaks. The EU/FAO project will help countries to intensify
cotton production and increase incomes in a sustainable way," said Niek van
der Graaff, Chief of the FAO Plant Protection Service.
In many developing countries safe use of pesticides is practically impossible.
Protective clothing is prohibitively expensive and the tropical heat makes
it almost impossible to wear. Many pesticides pose an enormous risk to human
health and the environment. Chronic poisoning, the increase of insecticide
resistance of many pests and the destruction of natural enemies are some
of the main problems.
FAO has a long history in IPM and cotton production. The UN agency started
working on more environmentally-friendly production methods in developing
countries in the 1960s. Currently FAO manages community IPM programmes on
rice and vegetables, involving more than one million farmers in 12 Asian
countries.
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For more information please contact: Erwin Northoff, tel: 0039-06-5705 3105,
e-mail: Erwin.Northoff@FAO.Org or the Internet at
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/Agricult/AGP/AGPP/IPM/Default.htm
You can listen/download the sound of an interview with Mr.Niek van
der Graaf (FAO Senior expert), by Erwin Northoff.
1/In RealAudio(with Realplayer G2): 353 Kb,Instant play but lower quality
than
mp3
ftp://ext-ftp.fao.org/Radio/RealAudio/cotton.rm
2/In mp3(with any mp3 player,Quicktime 4.0 or Windows Media Player):
(Broadcast quality, 1.342 Kb to be
downloaded):
ftp://ext-ftp.fao.org/Radio/MP3/cotton.mp3
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