India is among just four countries that contribute almost 70% to the world’s total applied toxicity (TAT) in the form of pesticide, which is directed at agricultural pests, but in affect unleashes huge collateral damage among “non-target” species (that is, species that pesticides claimed as collateral).
In 2022, at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, countries committed to reducing pesticide risk by 50% by 2030. Is the UN pact, intrinsically linked to biodiversity and human health, on track?
According to new paper in Science the answer is a resounding “no.” Researchers, for the very first time, calculated the total applied toxicity (TAT) from 2013-2019 across more than 600 pesticides, in 65 countries, and found that the applied toxicity had increased, especially for 20 pesticides used in agriculture.
Threatening a target
China, Brazil, the U.S., and India are the biggest contributors of global TAT, accounting for nearly 70%. Pesticides, the researchers found, were used copiously on fruits, vegetables, maize, soybean, rice, and other cereals. While the study found that toxicity increased in India, the U.S., Brazil and several countries in Africa, Chile was the solitary country on track to meet the UN’s 2030 target. The increased TAT could be due to countries using larger volumes of pesticides, as well as more toxic ones, says the paper.
To estimate TAT at a national level, the scientists looked at the annual amount of pesticide used in agriculture in the study countries and also the toxicity and lethality of these pesticides for different non-target species, such as pollinators, aquatic plants, invertebrates, fish, terrestrial arthropods (invertebrates with segmented bodies), soil organisms, terrestrial vertebrates ,and plants. The researchers found that during the study period, terrestrial arthropods were most affected, followed by soil organisms and fish.
“The importance of all of these species’ groups is recognised in the biodiversity debate, in agroecology, and from an economic perspective,” says the paper. The increasing global TAT trends pose a challenge to achieving the U.N. pesticide risk reduction target and demonstrate the presence of threats to biodiversity globally, it added.
Toxicity from pesticides increased in the study period, especially among invertebrate species, terrestrial plants, terrestrial arthropods, soil organisms and fish. Notably, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Indian subcontinent, and southern Australia showed particularly high TAT increases.
India’s antiquated laws
It is not only biodiversity that is plagued by pesticide: it has begun to affect people too. In 2014, two children died in their Chennai apartment after a pest control treatment in November 2024, media reports say.
“These chemicals now permeate daily life in ways that are often invisible: in wall paints, incense sticks, furniture, aircraft cabins, stored grains, and even temple prasad,” the author, Narasimha Reddy Donthi, an independent public policy expert, wrote. The Insecticides Act, 1968, focuses on agricultural use, with few provisions for “ordinary use” in homes, hotels, construction sites and transport systems, he added.
India’s Insecticides Act, 1968 is obsolete, Mr. Donthi told The Hindu. “The use, misuse, and overuse have changed since 1968. Pesticides have become more toxic. They have are persistent across food, water and soil.” India uses at least 66 pesticides that are banned elsewhere, he added. For instance, paraquat, which is banned in Europe, is used in India.
The new Pesticides Management Bill 2025 is expected to be passed in March this year. It aims to reduce the risk to people and the environment, and push for pesticides that are “biological and based on traditional knowledge”. But without taking expert suggestions, it could be worse-off than the 1968 Act, Mr. Donthi said. “India needs a long-term transformation policy in agriculture, shifting away from ‘green revolution’ packages, which includes pesticides, in view of the farmers’ crisis, climate change, chemical-residue laden environment. Liability has to be inbuilt into law, as a policy.”
To ensure continuous and comprehensive monitoring, it is essential that all countries regularly report updated annual data on agricultural pesticide use, broken down by active ingredient, said coauthor Jakob Wolfram of the Institute for Environmental Sciences, University Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany, said in a release. “This would enable real-time tracking of progress toward the targets set at the UN Biodiversity Conference,” he added.
Not so rosy
In January this year, The Guardian reported that environmentalists had raised concerns over toxic “pesticide cocktails” in apples sold across Europe. Of a sample of 60 apples bought in 13 European countries, 64% of the samples contained “forever chemicals”, which do not breakdown easily as they contain a very strong carbon-fluorine bond. On Valentines Day, on February 14, laboratories in the Netherlands found that imported roses had toxins at much larger levels than other flowers. And EU recently rejected consignments of Indian basmati rice because residues of a fungicide (banned in Europe, but not in India) were found.
The researchers called for greater adoption of organic agriculture and a shift to less toxic pesticides in order to meet global commitments: “Substantial actions, combining shifts to less-toxic pesticides, increased adoption of organic agriculture, and also provision of national pesticide use data, will be required globally to approach the United Nations’ target.”
If action is not taken immediately, only Chile is projected to meet the UN’s 2030 target. China, Japan, and Venezuela showed a declining trend in applied toxicity.
As the pioneering environmental activist Rachel Carson presciently wrote in her 1962 book, Silent Spring: “If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones,” we had better know something about the power of the “who’s who of pesticides.”
divya.gandhi@thehindu.co.in
