With the endosulfan controversy niggling the country’s farm economy, Kerala has started shifting gears to electronic pest surveillance and bio-security systems for major crops. Pepper, cardamom, cashew, banana, coconut and vegetables will be the major beneficiaries of the safe-to-eat focussed plant health management blueprint that the State Planning Board has readied.
?Apart from scaling up the safe-to-eat food production project and organic farming programme, the plan recommends a network of plant health input centres to equip farmers with diagnostic kits, pheromone traps and bio-control agents,? according to P Rajasekharan, chief (agriculture), State Planning Board. ?Disease-free planting material will be produced in bulk, developing comprehensive bio-security systems covering quarantine and e-surveillance,? he told FE.
Although the Supreme Court had passed an interim order in 2011 May banning endosulfan in India, the chemical has its proponents who believe that its pesticide value is irreplaceable. For instance, there has been active pressure from farm planners in Gujarat and Maharashtra in favour of the pesticide, which, they maintain, is non-carninogenic. At the same time, the concern about developing effective alternative practices has been loud and clear in Kerala, after noting its debilitating impact on humans and environment in Kasargode.
The move for safe-to eat food production is also an effective quality nudge in the cash crops export market. Kerala accounts for bulk of India’s pepper and cardamom exports. The State Planning Board’s latest recommendations include R&D on new generation pesticides, new and emerging pests and diseases, and early warning and forecasting systems for pests and crop diseases. It underlined the need to scale up research and development of bio-agents and indigenous and traditional knowledge.
In a national workshop , including technology managers, agricultural planners and policy planners, the Kerala government had recently considered various aspects of plant health management. ?An integrated approach is fundamental to pep up farm productivity,? says CP John, member, State Planning Board.
Major crops like pepper, coconut, cardamom, banana and vegetables would have area-wide plant health management programmes.
Once the workshop puts up its final report to the Cabinet, an expert advisory group on plant health management is likely to be set up.
This core group is to run a proposed network of laboratories for production of bio-control agents.