Bangkok--29 Sep--ABM
A new report published by respected international researcher, PG Economics, reveals the significant impact to farmers' income and food production if farmers couldn't continue to use glyphosate – a widely used crop protection tool.
Thailand farmers would probably face significant yield losses and hit to their incomes if they could not use glyphosate. If there was a 5% yield loss it would result in 1 million tonnes less food production and a corresponding loss of farmer revenues of $231 million annually with rubber, tropical fruit and oil palm being most impacted.
According to the report, "The contribution of glyphosate to agriculture in Thailand and implications of restrictions on its use", replacing glyphosate with other weed control methods would directly increase average farmer weed control costs by $26/ha or about $50 million a year.
Director of PG Economics, Graham Brookes, said: "Glyphosate is an important tool to Thailand farmers representing 33% of all herbicides used in the country. Glyphosate is widely used in plantation crops like oil palm, rubber and tropical fruit for land preparation and in crop weed control. Glyphosate was the most important herbicide in oil palm (79% of all herbicide use) and in rubber (81% of all herbicide use). It is also an important herbicide in rice, corn, sugarcane and cassava."
"In the field crops of corn and rice, where glyphosate is used by some farmers, the main impact of restrictions on its use are expected to be higher costs of land preparation, poorer levels of weed control, less effective land preparation and lower yields."
"Without access to glyphosate, farmers would require access to labour for additional manual and mechanical weed control practices. This additional labour requirement is substantial and would be difficult to secure."
"The study also reveals that the environmental benefits of reduced or conservation tillage, used by some corn and rice farmers – less soil erosion, higher water retention, reduced CO2 emissions – would be lost. If farmers currently practicing reduced tillage are no longer able to utilize glyphosate for weed control, they indicated they would revert to ploughing," Mr Brookes said.
Glyphosate has been a breakthrough for farmers globally and is widely used by Thai farmers to protect their crops against weed competition and sustainably produce quality food that is both safe and affordable. Glyphosate has been safely used for more than 40 years and is registered for use in 160 countries worldwide.
When it comes to safety assessments, no other pesticide has been more extensively tested than glyphosate. After four decades of evaluations, no regulatory agency in the world considers glyphosate to be carcinogenic.
In the past two years alone, regulatory authorities in the Europe Union, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States have publicly reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer.