National inception workshop: Lifecycle Management of Pesticides and Disposal of POPs Pesticides in Kyrgyzstan

A large quantity of obsolete pesticides reside in Central Asia. The region used to be an important centre for agriculture, during Soviet times, particularly cotton production, with mandatory pesticide application. Many of the obsolete pesticides have been disposed in inappropriate burial sites or dumped in industrial landfill sites. Common and major issues exist in pesticide registration and risk assessment, where regulatory and technical requirements such as FAO specifications and equivalence are hardly known, resulting in extremely poor risk communication to users.

The project objective is to reduce persistent organic pollutants (POPs) releases from obsolete pesticide stockpiles and contaminated sites, and strengthen the capacity for sound management of pesticides in countries of Central Asia and Turkey.