The FAO Representative to the Islamic Republic of Iran noted that widespread use of pesticides in the country could have significant impact both on sustainable development and people’s health unless a comprehensive programme is instituted to promote safe food production and consumption.
In a statement delivered at the 28th Session of the Health and International Cooperation Group of Iran's Academy of Medical Sciences (IAMS) which focused on the theme of ‘Pesticides and Nutrition’ and was held in Tehran on Thursday (2 July 2015), Serge Nakouzi, FAO Representative, underscored that “the rapid growth in production and trade of chemicals over the past three decades in the world has led to increased concerns about the risks posed to food safety by chemicals and hazardous pesticides”.
“Countries that lack adequate infrastructure to monitor the import and use of these chemicals are most vulnerable and affected by this risk in particular” added Nakouzi.
A similar message was conveyed by Gary Lewis, the UN Resident Coordinator, who pointed out that “decades of inconsiderate use of chemical pesticides have had a serious impact on the quality of the environment and the health of human beings”.
The IAMS Health & International Cooperation Group deliberated, in the presence of representatives from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture as well as the UN Resident Coordinator in Iran and representatives from other UN agencies, on the complexity of the challenges faced in the country in terms of pesticide management and the correlation between the use of pesticides and nutrition, food safety and the health of people.
The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach has been advocated to ensure the safety of agriculture produce. The IPM has constituted a pillar for the concurrent sustainable intensification of crop production and pesticide risk reduction. It is a globally-accepted mechanism that promotes food safety, enhances food quality and ensures the protection of consumers.
“IPM is being mainstreamed in all of FAO activities pertaining to crop production and protection also as part of its advocacy of climate-smart agriculture, less input intensive agricultural methodologies and the safeguarding of natural resources in agricultural practices” stated the FAO Representative to Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has been one of the pioneer countries in the Near East and North Africa region which started the implementation of IPM programme in April 2004. Within the ambit of the project, several countries visited Iran between 2004 and 2014 to benefit from the capacity built within the country on the implementation methods of IPM and Farmer Field School (FFS). Today, the IPM/FFS in Iran is applied to more than 14 different crops. Another excellent result of the Project has been the creation of the IPM Group, a Community-based Organization (CBO) group of farmers and consumers, which is engaged in a “Farm to Fork” initiative that it has established on a trust-based market approach which is currently expanding.
The United Nations Resident Coordinator also expressed the readiness of the UN system to assist the country on pesticides management issues and said that, under the Small Grants Programme of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations has been working with community-based partners to help apply the IPM approach to rice production and horticulture to demonstrate sustainability and productivity of such practices in Iran.
According to the statistical data published by FAO, 25% of the international production of pesticides is used by developing countries and 99% of the mortality cases caused by exposure to these pesticides are recorded in these countries.
In his concluding remarks, Nakouzi highlighted the importance of harnessing the substantive contributions that could be made by a wide spectrum of national and international stakeholders and underscored the need for an integrated programme to manage effectively the use of pesticides in the country so as to safeguard the health of people as well as the natural environmental resources of the country.