Pesticide use drops sharply in 10 years

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Tractors plow a farm in a southeastern province. Turkish farmers cut pesticide use while increasing plant production in the last 10years, data show. AA photo

The use of agricultural pesticide dropped to 40,000 tons from 55,000 tons in last 10 years, while plant production reached 140 million tons, up from 105 million in the same period, according to data from the Agriculture Ministry.

This was achieved thanks to the “Integrated Fight Principles,” which give priority to alternative methods such as biotechnical methods, hardy species, mechanical, physical, biological fights and cultural measures.
Also, redundant and excessive usage of pesticides was prevented by ending air-backed insecticide applications. Besides, plant protection products began to be sold only with prescriptions and used according to the technical instructions; and the users of the products were registered and certified.

Within the Integrated and Controlled Product Management Project conducted with the collaboration of the ministry and 15,000 producers, farmer training and supervision work was conducted with visits paid to fields, vineyards, orchards and greenhouses.

The products which did not have residue problems were rewarded with a certificate and a logo. With the evaluations made within the scope of the EU harmonization process, 181 licensed substances having pesticide effect were prohibited in Turkey within three years.