“We have prided ourselves of an ordinance that bans smoking in roofed areas of this city, realizing the dangers of second hand smoking to non-smokers. On the other hand, the continued use of this spray method reaches places even far from banana plantations, thereby contaminating with fungicides the air we breathe,” the statement from 17 groups of different sectors and faiths, said.
“Majority of the banana industries in Davao City practice aerial spraying to control Sigatoka disease. However, pesticides in the air drift up to more than three kilometers from the treatment site thereby contaminating soil, open bodies of water, other animals and human environs in the process,” said the statement of Ananda Marga, Babas Foundation (BFI), Bantay Kabuhayan at Kalikasan (BAKKAL), Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Foods Not Bombs Collective, Interface Development Interventions, Inc. (IDIS), Kinaiyahan Amumahon ug Bantayan Movement (KAUBAN), Kinaiyahan Unahon Movement, Kalitawhan Working Group on Biodiversity, Kolos Neng Bi Libo, Panaghoy sa Kinaiyahan-Coalition for Mother Earth (Panaghoy), Mamamayan Ayaw sa Aerial Spray (MAAS), Magsasaka at Siyentipiko para sa Pag-unlad ng Agrikultura (MASIPAG), For the Upliftment of the Moral, Economic, Technological, Socio-Cultural Aspirations of Men and Women (METSA), Sonshine Philippines Movement (SPM), The Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every Name Church and Youth Advocates for Watershed (YaH2O).
The groups said the vegetative buffer zones from the plantation to the schools, rivers, public roads and houses which are supposed to minimize the ill effects of the drift “have not been properly complied with” and that “public information on the aerial spraying activity to warn people of its danger is inadequate.”
“Meanwhile, communities surrounding the plantations complain of the nasty smell of the pesticides, itching, stinging in the eyes, suffocation, weakness, asthma, allergies and nausea as a result of the spray. These same people have nowhere to run, and are situated there because of the lack of economic choices. Aerial spraying then is tantamount to dousing them and their limited resources with poison,” the groups said.
Representatives from these groups will picket the City Council on Tuesday in support of the proposed city ordinance “banning aerial spray practices and providing mechanism for its gradual phase out in agribusiness practices within the territorial jurisdiction of Davao City and prescribing guidelines thereof.”
The groups said the current “unsustainable farming practices such as aerial spraying of banana plantations have threatened not only our health, air, water and soils, but also the livelihood of some of us. If this practice continues, we could not provide our children a healthy environment that they truly deserve.”
In its position paper dated January 25 this year, the Interface Development Interventions (IDIS), a non-governmental organization working for the protection of the upland watersheds in the city noted that “studies in banana-producing countries show that of the fungicides applied through air, about 40 times during each cultivation cycle, 15% is lost to wind drift and falls outside the plantation, 40% ends up on soil rather than on the plants, and about 35% is washed off by rain totaling to a 90% loss.”
It added that based on the estimates of the Escuela de Agriculturade la Region Tropical Humeda (EARTH) as cited in De Leon and Escobido’s “The Banana Export Industry and Agrarian Reform” study in 2004, 90% of the fungicide sprayed “ends up in the soils, waters, crops, animals and even human beings surrounding the treatment site which are not supposed to be the target of the spraying.” (MindaNews)
Leave a comment