{"id":75265,"date":"2018-03-03T14:51:29","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T21:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=75265"},"modified":"2018-03-03T14:51:29","modified_gmt":"2018-03-03T21:51:29","slug":"lifting-the-glyphosate-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/03\/03\/lifting-the-glyphosate-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Lifting the glyphosate ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The reported decision of the National Economic Council (NEC) to lift the ban on glyphosate, a weedicide that was widely used in this country previously, though not yet officially communicated to those concerned nor formally gazetted will no doubt be widely welcomed, mostly by the tea industry. Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake went on record when the ill-advised ban was first imposed several months ago that he hoped to have it lifted. But he did not succeed in his endavour and the tea industry, beset by labour shortages that made expensive manual weeding near impossible, had to suffer production losses resulting in weed-choked fields. Given that tea prices were high in recent months, the national economy took a blow as a result.<\/p>\n

President Maithripala Sirisena chairs the 10-member NEC which, according to reports published last week, had unanimously decided not to persist with the ban. The president, believed to have been influenced by a Buddhist monk National List parliamentarian, threw his weight behind the original decision to ban this popular weedicide. Coming as he does from the rice-growing Polonnaruwa district badly affected by CKDU, the chronic kidney disease, he cannot be blamed for his stand as there are grounds for suspicion, though not ironclad proof, that this disease is a result of ground water pollution by dangerous chemicals. Yet it must be said that the matters that the NEC considered at its last meeting on Feb. 22 should have been carefully examined before the ban was imposed rather than later. One newspaper quoted the NEC Secretary General saying that the glyphosate ban will be lifted on all crops other than rice. That is understandable given that the deadly kidney disease occurs mainly in the rice-growing areas of the dry zone.<\/p>\n

This country is notorious for its history of taking ill considered decisions without adequately considering all the implications of such decisions. The cabinet government system long entrenched here includes cabinet papers making various proposals being distributed to all concerned ministries whose views are invited on such proposals before hard decisions are taken. Unfortunately, the deterioration of the quality of officials in the public service, a process that has continued over a large number of years, has deprived the system of quality advice that was once freely available as observations on cabinet papers. Sadly such observations today more reflect personal agendas, often of politicians, than the national interest.<\/p>\n

It would also be relevant here to state that glyphosate was available in the market and was being used by some while the ban was in force. This is why it is necessary that government authorities consider whether a proper enforcement machine is available to ensure that leakages do not occur. Given the extent of human ingenuity and the profit incentives that drive greedy businessmen there are too many who can find ways and means of circumventing rules and regulations for their own advantage. If glyphosate, once the ban is lifted and imports resume, is useful for rice-growers there is a grave danger that stocks will reach the paddy sector too. The creaky government machine will be most likely be incapable of ensuring that the chemical is only available to and applied in sectors where the ban does not apply.<\/p>\n

It is to the good that a National Economic Council, on which both the president and prime minister as well as many other senior ministers and officials sit, is looking at matters of vital concern to the economy including reversing wrong decisions like the glyphosate ban. In today\u2019s world there is a great deal of information on scientific work that has been done which is easily and conveniently on tap. The Daily FT which last week broke the story of the glyphosate ban being lifted reported that the most recent risk assessment for glyphosate conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December last year had found that the chemical was not harmful to human health. The agency\u2019s human health review had done in-depth work evaluating dietary, residential\/non-occupational, aggregate and occupational exposure to the chemical.<\/p>\n

Additionally the agency had performed a similar review of the glyphosate cancer database, including data from the epidemiological, animal carcinogenicity and gentoxicity studies and found no conclusive links to any ill effects. The US EPA findings are among the latest in a substantial body of scientific evidence \u2013 including a 2017 health survey by the US National Institute of Health which shows that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans and poses no other meaningful risk to human health when the product is used according to the pesticide label. These scientific findings are consistent with the conclusions of other scientific reviews done elsewhere, the newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

What is relevant to us is whether all this information, which was probably available when the ban decision was taken, was properly evaluated before a prohibition that had various detrimental economic effects was slapped. It is also a lesson for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island The reported decision of the National Economic Council (NEC) to lift the ban on glyphosate, a weedicide that was widely used in this country previously, though not yet officially communicated to those concerned nor formally gazetted will no doubt be widely welcomed, mostly by the tea industry. Plantation Industries Minister Navin Dissanayake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}