Developmental prejudice

The intensive pesticide use in Malaysian agriculture has caused serious public health problems and has been heavily criticised for more than two decades. But the government remains committed to their use as part of its economic development. Peter Triantafillou reports.

Taking water from a drain to mix lindane to spray cocoa, Perak, Malaysia

Concern over the public health and environmental effects of pesticides developed in Malaysia during the 1970s as the rate of use of agrochemicals accelerated. The Pesticides Act 1974, which was implemented to control the manufacture, sale and storage of pesticides, did not succeed in reducing the magnitude and severity of pesticide poisoning. Nor did it satisfy the environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and some agricultural scientists who argued for a reduction of dependence on use, and a ban on certain toxic pesticides. 
    Despite these intense political debates, pesticides are still regarded as a necessity for development. Calls to reduce or even eliminate their use have been labelled unrealistic and impractical, because they are seen to jeopardise the economic development of the Malaysian nation-state.

Disputes over cost-effectiveness
The use of pesticides in Malaysian agriculture has grown rapidly from the 1960s onwards. Sales doubled during the 1980s from 175 million Malaysian Ringgit (RM) [US$45 million] in 1980 to RM329 million in 1990(1). However, in the early 1990s sales declined significantly to RM262 million in 1993. The down-turn was due a dwindling use of herbicides, which in turn, relates to deteriorating prospects for commercial production of rubber and cocoa(2).
    In the plantation sector, herbicide products are used extensively to reduce labour costs for the control of weeds. 
    Paraquat, the most favoured herbicide in the plantation sector and in smallholder agriculture, was subjected to severe criticism by the NGOs from the early 1980s. Between 1985 and 1990 the Pesticides Board under the Ministry of Agriculture made several drafts of the Highly Toxic Pesticides Regulations which aimed to regulate the use of paraquat, monocrotophos and calcium cyanide by imposing a series of restrictions on their use in the plantation sector. The most controversial elements of the Regulations required that the estate management should provide the workers with adequate protection equipment, ensure that no worker was allowed to handle pesticides more than five hours per day, and that every worker should have a regular medical examination. 
    The pesticide and plantation industries, and even several government authorities, claimed that the draft Regulations were too rigid and impractical, and would have detrimental effects on productivity in the plantation sector. Without cost-effective alternatives to the three pesticides, the critics argued that the draft Regulations should be dropped. From 1990 the Pesticides Board ceased all negotiations over the Regulations. It was therefore a surprise when the Highly Toxic Pesticide Regulations were enacted in 1996. But while the three pesticides were mentioned in the drafts of the 1980s, the costly controversial elements were omitted.
    Many NGOs, such as Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia-Pacific and Sahabat Alam (Friends of the Earth) Malaysia, and some agricultural scientists tried hard to convince the Pesticides Board that cost-effective alternatives to paraquat did exist. Despite their efforts, it became widely accepted in the media and other NGOs that a total ban on herbicide use in the plantation sector was unrealistic, because of the otherwise high labour-input requirements. 
    Organic farming initiatives and work on biological control (such as using micro-organisms to control pests), had little policy support, and remained primarily restricted to small-scale production of fruit and vegetables(3,4).

The quest for economic development
How and why did cost-effectiveness become one of the most powerful instruments to discard non-chemical pest control? One could attribute this to the overwhelming political and economic power of the Ministry of Agriculture, the pesticide industry and the plantation sector which had predominance over the environmental and consumer movements. However their arguments could only take on such authority because they conformed to a powerful set of norms and assumptions about development strategies.
    In the decade following 1945, the most urgent need was the modernisation and economic development of colonial Malaya (now part of Malaysia). Like a number of other colonial societies, Malaya could only become an independent nation-state if it developed its economy according to the ideals of industrialized countries. Modern technology, including pesticides, aimed to increase agricultural productivity, making it indispensable for economic development. 
    Malaysian political independence did not change the thinking about development. The decades following independence in 1957 only saw an intensification of efforts to modernise agricultural production. Independent Malaysia's ambitions to become a fully industrialized country, as embodied in the five-year development plans, called for increasing efficiency and productivity in all economic spheres. 
    In the case of agricultural development, the authorities largely maintained that chemical pesticides are indispensable to crop protection.

The 'safe use' option 
The firmly established link between pesticides and  economic development ruled out organic agriculture. Instead, practitioners turned the use of pesticides into a question of  'safe' and 'judicious' use.
    In 1984 the Department of Agriculture and  the German aid organization GTZ inaugurated the Malaysian-German Pesticide Project (MGPP) to ensure that "damage to man and the environment caused by pesticides is minimized"(5). In analysing the root cause of pesticide problems, the MGPP pointed neither to the vested economic interests of the pesticide producers and the plantation industry, nor to the Malaysian government's zealous quest for economic development, but to the 'fact' that pesticides are not used 'judiciously'(6). 
    This assumption had two crucial implications. First, the problems associated with the use of pesticides were not linked to the economic and political structures and dominant modes of thinking in Malaysian society. Individual farmers' practices were seen as the root of the problem, because he or she did not utilize pesticides safely. Secondly, by framing the problem as one of non-judicious and ineffective practices, it was assumed there was no need to reduce or avoid the use of pesticides to solve the problem: the solution was rather to change farmers' behaviour through improved education and stricter enforcement of existing regulations. 
    In 1988/89 the pesticide extension programme was launched to train all Malaysian pesticide users, (about 500,000) in the proper handling of pesticides, and train them in safety measures(7). By the end of 1993 around 1,000 vegetable farmers and about 50 Master Trainers had received training.
    Both the agricultural authorities and the pesticide and plantation industries, were now involved in educational measures. Responding to the criticism of the dangers of paraquat and other pesticides, the pesticide industry, led by ICI Agrochemicals, initiated in 1986 'product stewardship' programmes for the education of farmers and plantation workers handling pesticides. These programmes reflected obligations under the then newly-agreed FAO International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides. Programmes included distribution of pictogram posters and guide books to plantations and rural schools, visits to plantations to give talks on 'proper' handling of pesticides, and premiums to plantation workers demonstrating particular care in their use of pesticides(8).
    In the early 1990s, the United Planting Association of Malaysia (UPAM), the leading plantation owners' organisation, issued a set of guidelines for the handling of pesticides. Apart from instructions on how to avoid poisoning accidents, the guidelines recommended medical examinations of the plantation workers in order to "exclude unfit workers from entering the workforce and being a liability to the employer and equally running a risk to health being further aggravated"(9).
    Improved education was widely accepted as a necessary measure to prevent the poisoning of workers handling pesticides, and consumers eating food containing pesticide residues. The question was not whether pesticides should be banned, but whether education was actually adequate and effective.

Conclusion
While it is difficult not to see the educational measures as positive, they do legitimise the continued use of pesticides. The effects of the educational efforts have been to encourage the use of pesticides rather than reduce it. In the period 1988 to 1993 the total number of persons admitted to government hospitals due to pesticide poisoning remained stable at around 1,300 per year (of which about 400 died). In the period 1988-1991 paraquat constituted 60-70% of all hospital admissions due to pesticide poisoning, and as much as 90% of deaths due to pesticide poisoning(10).  
    The medical examinations demanded by the pesticide and plantation industries may serve to further the exploitation of plantation workers through the exclusion of workers deemed 'unfit' for handling pesticides.
    The focus on education deflects questions about the dependence on pesticides as an apparently necessary element in Malaysia's quest for economic development. The initiatives of organic farming and biological control, which have been increasingly adopted by some NGOs and agricultural scientists, need to  combat these assumptions, and facilitate breaks with mainstream development thinking and strategies for agricultural production.

References
1. Malaysia Agricultural Directory & Index 91/92, 97.
2. Malaysia Agricultural Directory & Index 93/94: 135-136; MACA Annual Report 1993/94: 2.1. 
3. Chew Boon Hock, Sustainable agriculture: present and future in Malaysia, CAP-SAM National Conference State of the Malaysian Environment, 5-9 January 1996, RECSAM, Penang.
4. Ong Kung Wai, Malaysian Country Profile, unpublished, IFOAM Conference, Organic Agriculture in Copenhagen: Down to Earth and Further Afield, Copenhagen, Denmark 11-15 August 1996.
5. Ahmad, Dato Abdul Mutalib and Gerd Walter-Echols, Malaysian-German Pesticide Project, 1984-1993, unpublished report, 1993, p8.
6. Ibid. p8.
7. Op. cit. 3, p102.
8. Malay Mail 12 December 1986, New Straits Times, 6 July 1988, The Star 17 July 1992.
9. UPAM, General Guidelines for the Safe and Effective Use of Pesticides, undated. 
10. Annual Report of Ministry of Health 1988 & 1991.

Peter Triantafillou is a lecturer at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Denmark.

 [This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 41, September 1998, pages 10-11]