Pesticide Management Part-3
Pesticide Management Bill (PMB) 2020 and Governance of Pesticide Sector
By:
Vijay SARDANA
Advocate, Delhi High Court
Techno-legal Expert on Agribusiness
& Consumer Products Industries
&
Priyanka Sardana, Advocate, Supreme Court of India
&
Aastha Sardana, Researcher on Legal Matters
Food must be safe and affordable. Efficient
agriculture inputs management is vital to ensure food security and safe food
for citizens and for trade.
Pesticide legislation must address the aspiration of society:
Laws always address the aspiration of society and
create a path for a better future for all stakeholders. Therefore, the main
reasons for updating the pesticide legislation should be to:
1. Pesticide Management Law must ensure consistency in the overall regulatory framework with effective
connections between pesticide legislation and other relevant legislation with
minimal contradiction or overlap. This is vital to ensure the accountability of the
stakeholders.
2. Pesticide Management Law should also clarify all issues related to responsibilities, authority or the mandate of the institutions involved in the various dimension of pesticide
management in the country;
3. Pesticide Management Law should also incorporate suitable provisions to address the new
requirements based on ground reality and advances in science and technology or
updated priorities of the countries related to food security, food safety and
other trade and non-trade issues;
4. Pesticide Management Law is a highly specialized and complex subject due to diversified agro-climatic conditions
and variety of crops. Pesticide laws should facilitate multidisciplinary approaches
to pesticide management for effective monitoring and control.
5. Most
agriculture products are traded and must meet the domestic laws and policies
where products are sold. In order to avoid trade barriers, Pesticide Management Law should
comply with requirements of international conventions, treaties, international
agreements and recommendations based on good practices;
6. In
order to facilitate global trade, the pesticide laws Pesticide Management Law should meet the international
norms to harmonize the requirements with countries within the region and key trading
partners.
The above-mentioned points highlight the principle
requirements of the Pesticide related laws in any country.
Homework required for revising pesticide laws:
There are many stakeholders in any society. All want to have a say in pesticide management in the country. Many
stakeholders have filed various public interest litigations to make changes in
the pesticide management system in the country.
Caution: There
are many players in the system, those who want a bigger market share for their products
and may like to use the regulatory arbitrage to gain market share. Fair and
unfair means cannot be ruled on in this battle of market share. This makes pesticide
management task more complex and difficult.
The only way to address these issues without fear
and favour is by doing good homework before the modified draft is formulated.
We suggest that before a drafting pesticide
legislation, due consideration should be given to the following:
1) Review and analyze all existing relevant
national legal and institutional frameworks directly or indirectly relevant for
pesticide management existing laws and objections raised on various legal and institutional
provisions and clauses by various stakeholders.
2) Review the provisions of the existing laws
and regulations based on the experience of farmers and scientists on technical
needs and regulatory failures. This can
be done based on identified and duly documented field realities and
experiences.
3) The existing pesticide legislation should be reviewed
based on international recommendations, which should be based on good
practices
4) While reviewing the new pesticide policy
objectives there must be due considerations for the cost-benefit analysis, socio-economic
conditions, impact on environment and workers health and other strategic issues
like over-dependency on imports etc. should be considered.
5) Pesticide legislation is highly techno-legal
subject. Sensible drafting needs a wider understanding of the subject and implication
of various provisions of the proposed law. This should involve a team composed
of techno-legal experts and in absence of them a team of legal and technical
experts from the field of pesticides and related subjects;
6) After drafting the proposed bill, the provisions
of the same should be discussed with the involvement of key stakeholders. This
will give the insight to the policymakers that how the stakeholders will react
on the final draft. Meanwhile, the policymakers can prepare the justifications
to address the media and people representatives, if required.
What next:
Now, the bigger question is, whether the proposed ‘Pesticide Management Bill ’2020’ is addressing these requirements or not? Please do share your views on the same.
We will analyse Pesticide Management Bill and 2020 and discuss this in detail in future articles.
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Disclaimer: This article is for general information. For any specific techno-legal discussion, you may contact the authors.
It's great piece of suggestions. It's true that in changing scenario manufacturers, to gain the market share may try to manipulate hence the law must take several suggestions in to consideration. Thanks
ReplyDeleteinteresting piece.
ReplyDeleteThe law making itself is such a hush hush process in India that the bills themselves become the casualty - examples : Seeds Act, PMB etc. Higher level of transparency and stakeholder consultation must be the way forward.