Greenpeace India on Wednesday termed the Plant Protection Code (PPC) — an initiative of the Tea Board of India that aims to handle the pesticide menace in tea cultivation — as “inadequate”.
The PPC, Greenpeace maintained, is based on a “reductionist approach” and removes only “certain chemical pesticides”. “It won’t be able to move the tea industry out of the pesticides treadmill,” it said in a release.
The organisation had in August this year released a report ‘Trouble Brewing', highlighting the presence of pesticide residue in tea.
According to Neha Saigal, senior campaigner, Greenpeace India, the need was that of a holistic ecosystem-based approach that phases out chemical pesticides. And, the first concrete step in this regard should see pilots being carried out in agro-ecological zones.
“This approach has been publicly supported by HUL (Hindustan Unilever) and Girnar,” she said.
According to Greenpeace, a ban on certain chemical pesticides is going to cause inconvenience to small tea growers as there is no knowledge on ecological alternatives to pest control.
“It is important that a road-map for small tea growers is chalked out. Greenpeace India, in the workshop with the Tea Board and small tea growers, stressed that the road-map should focus on three main areas: institutional capacity, knowledge transfer and marketing support,” the organisation said in its release.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.