Thuy Dung
Pham Dong Quang, deputy head of the Ministry’s Department of Crop Production, told a confererence on restructuring agriculture held in Hanoi on Tuesday that the improper use of such drugs are due to poor understanding of farmers and the weak management of the authorities.
As the production of the drugs is small and scattered, it is hard for authorities to manage the drug market while the introduction of techniques to replace the plant protection drugs is overlooked.
“It is estimated that more than ten million farmers use plant protection drugs nationwide and each agriculture official on average is tasked with giving guidance on how to use the drugs for more than 3,000 farmers. With such a small number of agriculture officials, farmers have very little chance to access proper guidance to use the drugs,” Quang said.
Meanwhile, drugs are sold widely across the country and farmers use such drugs under the instruction of vendors, who always advise buyers to apply larger-than-needed amount of drugs in order to earn more profits.
For paddy only, around 9.3 million farmers use plant protection drugs on their fields to prevent pests, said Nguyen Xuan Hong, head of the Plant Protection Department.
However, Hong said if the task of plant protection is well organized into service teams with the coordination of relevant agencies and provision of suitable equipment, then only between four and six people are needed to use the drug on an area which currently requires 100 people.
If that can be done, the drug use management will be more effective and the manpower can be reduced by 94%, he said.
The agriculture ministry is working on a project to organize such teams on a pilot basis in the 2015-2017 period. According to the plan, the State will cover the costs spent on establishing those service teams, training staff, acquiring machines to spray the drug, and insurance premiums for members of those teams.
The project will be applied next year if approved by the Government.
Đăng ký: VietNam News