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.