Materia Medica Malaysiana

Asia Times - Malaysia pesticide ban could be reversed

"Environmentalists told me last year that the long battle to ban paraquat has been won," Anggamah said, referring to a government announcement last August that paraquat will be banned in 2005. "We were all overjoyed." But the battle to ban paraquat is far from over.

Since the government decision was made, plantation companies and agro-chemical giants such as Syngenta have launched a campaign to get the ban reversed. They have importuned the media, plantation workers, their trade union, fruit growers and rice farmers to join forces with big business to revoke the ban.

Anggamah said: "I think it [the ban] is a lost cause."

This month, about 30 rice farmers in Kepala Batas in Penang state staged a demonstration against the paraquat ban. They claimed, in a memorandum to the government, to represent 17,000 rice farmers and argued that paraquat is cheap, effective and proven.

They quoted a now-famous Syngenta phrase attributed to John McGillivray, general manager of the giant's local unit Syngenta Prop Protection, "Paraquat is a dream product."

But "the farmers fail to mention that paraquat is a dangerous poison, not only to users but also to the environment and to everyone in the food chain", said Irene Fernandez, director of the non-government Tenaganita group.

Nevertheless, the farmers represent a powerful political force - influential enough to revoke the ban especially in an election year such as now.


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Is paraquat coming back????