Our Terms & Conditions | Our Privacy Policy
Dr Cletus Alexander, an Environmental Scientist, is imploring farmers in Saint Lucia to make sure they use chemicals on their farms in the proper manner and pay attention to their labels.
Dr Alexander, who holds a PhD in Environmental Science, has worked in the agriculture sector in St Lucia for many years.
“All chemicals are dangerous and have hazard warnings,” Dr Alexander said on the program: “NFTO-Re Imaging Banana Plus”, hosted by the chairman of the National Fair Trade Organization ( NFTO) Eustace Monrose, last Sunday.
“Farmers in St Lucia depend on chemicals a lot. Every little problem they have, they use chemical,” he said.
Dr Alexander stressed the importance of reading the labels on chemicals very carefully before using them, urging farmers to make sure they understand what they read.
“If you can’t read, you don’t know anything about the chemical, why are you buying the chemical?” he asked, adding that if someone can’t read and understand the label they should find someone to do so for them.
“That is where you get all the information about the chemical and that is law,” he added.
He also warned farmers not to buy any chemical which does not have a name, label and expiry date on it, lamenting that he has seen chemicals being sold in many places without labels but people still buy them.
“I see things marked in Chinese, French… I don’t know where they come from… Those chemicals have no right to be on the market,” he said.
According to Dr Alexander, the active ingredients of some of the chemicals farmers use in St Lucia have been used in war, noting that some chemicals such as gramoxone have been banned in other countries.
“However, in terms of the environment, it is one of the safest chemicals you can use,” he said.
He described, Vydate, as one of the chemicals that is very dangerous and should not be bought by anyone unless given a permit to do so from the Pesticide Board.
Dr Alexander also lamented that he observed farmers using chemicals without Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
[ad_1]
Images are for reference only.Images and contents gathered automatic from google or 3rd party sources.All rights on the images and contents are with their legal original owners.
Aggregated From –
[ad_2]
Comments are closed.