Most people in Bangladesh think that food like vegetables are healthy but they are not aware that most of them are not safe or free from poison. It is important to know whether we are eating quality foods. Are we being slow-poisoned by eating contaminated foods? We really need to eat safe food for our survival. We have learnt that unscrupulous traders are poisoning our fruits and fishes. We came to learn about it last week during our visit to Nangarpur in Jessore. The farmers and scientists there told us that harmful pests are destroying these vegetables. To stop pest attacks many farmers use toxic chemical which can not destroy the pests but damages the vegetables. Some farmers use this toxic chemical so extensively that our body organs like lungs, eyes and reproductive system. This can cause diseases such as cancer. Moreover, the toxic also damages and pollutes the environment and animal life.
For example, a recent study found that in Islampur and Faridpur only 3kgs out of 50kgs brinjal were found safe for consumption. The enemies of brinjal are fruit flies and fruit borer. The female fruit borers lay their eggs on vegetable leaves. When these eggs hatch and become worms they move to the nearest brinjal and stay there for 10 to15 days. After some days they hatch and became a kind of moth which are very harmful for vegetables. That means we are not always eating good vegetables. As these vegetables are infected and sprayed so these are unsafe for consumption.
There are many pests like the pumpkin caterpillers that are dangerous for vegetables. To reduce this, farmers can use friendly insects such as Trico-grammachilonis that can destroy eggs. Another friendly insect called bracon habetor can destroy larvae. Another way to reduce pests is by using magic box. This is a box which carries sex pheromone and at the bottom some soapy water. This works when the male pest is attracted with the sex pheromone thinking it as female pest. When the male pest enters the box it is trapped by the soapy water and when this will happen the female pest cannot mate with the male pest and thus reproduction will fail. When there are sucking pests we can use mashed neem seeds and spray it and the result will be goo because all the pests would be killed.
We have seen that local people at Nangarpur use magic boxes. Those are very popular among farmers in Jessore and elsewhere in Bangladesh. Demand for these traps is very high but the supply is too inadequate. Farmers face problems in expanding this new found device for controlling pests in a natural, environment-friendly and safe way to boost crop production.
An elderly farmer, Nazrul Islam Khan, an organiser of Gaitghat Krishi Club, Nagarpur, a remote village under Sadar Upazila in Jessore, told us that he had a long battle against harmful pest attacks in the locality. He said that scarcity of safe and low-cost pest management inputs still compell farmers to spray harmful and costly pesticides, hampering the success story of the continuous efforts of a number of scientists to control pests in a natural and organic method.
Scientists have persuaded the farmers to use 'pheromone traps' and beneficial insects in vegetable fields to control harmful pests naturally, but neither the scientists nor the government so far ensured sufficient supply of those inputs.
Khan said, "Scientists trained us to apply pheromone traps and beneficial insects on our crops to control pests. But these inputs are not available either in the market or in their (scientists) stock. Once the farmers got pheromone traps and beneficial insects free of cost, but now they are anxious to buy them to protect their crops," he said. "We simply want adequate supply of those inputs."
The scientists of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute provided synthetic sex pheromones and beneficial insects to a number of farmers in vegetable growing areas like Jessore, Narsingdi, Comilla, Bogra and Pabna to experiment and find out if these inputs could replace harmful pesticides to reduce damage to public health as well as reduce production cost.
Dr Syed Nurul Alam, chief investigator of the entomology division of BARI, said, "Harmful pests can be controlled by using sex pheromone traps, locally known as jadur phaad (magic trap) and a wide range of biological agents including insects like Trichogramma Wasp, Bracon Wasp and Green Lacewing."
"The farmers bait boxs with synthetic sex pheromones, which emit an odour that mimics the natural odour of the female sex pheromones. Cuelure has been found to be highly effective in controlling pests in fields where brinjal, bean, cabbage, cauliflower, pumpkin, cucumber and gourds are grown," he said. "Baffled by the odour of the female, the male fruit fly is attracted to the Cuelure bait and is trapped." He said that the country should adopt the "totally integrated pest management system" as the insecticide-based management system has failed to control many pests. "The pests are becoming resistant to almost all chemical pesticides as the frequency of spraying is gradually increasing while their efficacy is gradually decreasing."
'The frequency of spraying insecticides in a brinjal farm was 84 times in 1994. But in 2001 and 2004 the frequency increased to 140 and 160 times respectively," he informed us. "Earlier they had to spray only once a week, now they have to spray at least once everyday." It means the pests have become drug-resistant.
He said biological control involves use of a specially chosen organism to control a specific pest. This chosen organism might be a predator or a parasitoid which attacks harmful insects.
Dr Alam claimed that the use of biological agents has no adverse effect on human health and the cost effectiveness of bio-control measures is noteworthy.
During our visit to some vegetable fields at Nangarpur farmers there said that they would like to see more uses of this magic trap and other environment-friendly devices and make the food including vegetables in our country poison-free for our healthy growth. Before this field trip, personally I was not at all aware of the presence of such poison in our vegetables.
The government should take extra initiative to produce safe vegetables, grains and crops.
