Nagpur: As last year’s deaths due to accidental inhalation of pesticides has left the manufacturers extra cautious, one of the companies is pushing mechanization as means to prevent further mishaps.
A leading pesticide company has come up with sprayers mounted on specially designed vehicles. The company itself is offering to do the spraying at a price much less than a farmworker has to be paid. Landless labourers as well as small farmers in the area look at spraying operations as a source of income.
Workers even push themselves beyond their capacity to maximize the wages. The practice includes unsafe use of pesticides, which is being blamed for the 62 deaths throughout the state last year.
Altogether 40 such machines have been deployed in Yavatmal district alone, which saw the maximum deaths due to pesticide inhalation. Farmers, on the other hand, find the machines a solution to the labour shortage being faced these days.
A covered vehicle with the dispensers at a length of 20 feet is claimed to keep the sprayer safe, said sources in the crop care federation (CCFI), an association of pesticide makers.
Farmers say the deaths have also left the labourers scared who are now demanding more. In such a situation, they can be replaced by machines.
Harish Mehta, an adviser with CCFI, said the vehicle is designed to move within the gaps in the fields without damaging the crop. The boom is 20 feet long each side and the operator sits behind a plastic shield. The charges of per acre spraying includes the cost of pesticides too. An acre can be covered in minutes, he said.
This cost is almost one-fourth to half of what a farm worker would charge.
Kishore Tiwari, chairman of Vasantrao Naik Shetkari Swavalamban Mission (VNSSM), said mechanization can hamper the workers’ interest, but it would at least prevent deaths.
“There is an acute labour shortage in the villages and the wages component also affects the farmers’ profitability. If the farmers are able to successfully replace men with machines, it would be a welcome move,” said Vijay Jawandhia, a veteran Shetkari Sangthatana leader.
“The spraying season is expected to begin by end of the month. There is already a shortage of farm hands. The workers are demanding as much as Rs 450 a day for spraying,” said a farmer near Wani town in Yavatmal.
Meanwhile, CCFI carried out training sessions throughout the district. During the interactions, farm hands admitted that they had been spraying pesticides without wearing any protective gear.
CCFI has planned to supply safety kits directly to the persons engaged in spraying through the government.
