Regulate, but do not ban aerial spray, says expert

A foreign expert on aerial spraying drift has supported to the call to continue the farm practice, saying it is better to regulate it than outrightly stopping it.
Dr. Andrew Hewitt, an international expert who has authored books on the issue who was invited by the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority to speak on the subject, also denied reports that aerial spraying drift could reach to 3.2 kilometers as alleged by those opposing the farm practice.
Hewitt, a Doctor of Philosophy in Crop Protection and Pest Management and Master of Science in Bio-Aeronautics, said that while there is a need to protect the banana industry, there is also a need to protect the environment and the health of the people and “I think we can do both.”
“Rather than banning it (banning aerial spraying), we can regulate it,” he said during a forum at the University of the Philippines-Mindanao.
Dr. Hewitt also went to Camocaan, a village in Hagonoy, Davao del Sur which was the subject of a 2006 controversial study funded by the Department of Health, to see the farm practice. He said, based on what he saw in Camocaan which is adjacent to a banana farm, aerial spraying practice in the Davao region can be among the best practices in the world.
Based on the spraying method he saw in Camocaan, he added, the banana farm has also adhered to a buffer zone enough to protect the community, adding that the aerial spraying process done in the nearby farm, the two-meter buffer zone is enough.
His position on aerial spraying is supported also by Prof. Eufemio T. Rasco Jr., a professor of the state university and a national academician, who added that aerial spraying is not a problem, but “part of the solution.”
He said the problem of the banana industry is the sigatoka, a disease caused by a fungus that results in low quality and low yield. “I like to believe that we all agree that we should continue to exploit the opportunity for socioeconomic growth, and we can only do this if we solve the sigatoka disease,” he said.
“Is there a viable alternative to the use of fungicide to control sigatoka? My understanding is that there is none,” he added. Because “our minds are conditioned by the popular press to fear synthetic chemicals that we forget that we are actually living in a chemical world; chemicals are in food we eat, the water we drink; we use chemicals for washing our clothes and cleaning our houses,” he added.
He also cited the case of the dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a synthetic pesticide used in controlling malaria, but was banned because of its danger to birds. When the chemical was banned, the cases of malaria in Sri Lanka increased to 2.5 million in 1969 from 17 in 1962 before the ban. It was the chemical which also brought down the cases to 17 from 2.8 million in 1948.
“What about the birds, which are supposed to be threatened by DDT?
Statistics show that the number of birds actually increased during the time that the DDT was being used,” he added.
However, Councilor Leonardo R. Avila, city council committee on environment and natural resources chair, pointed out that the city government decided to come up with an ordinance banning the farm practice because of health concerns.
Avila said the city government decided on passing the ordinance because of reports that some residents of the city were afflicted with skin diseases.
The ordinance has been a subject of a legal battle between the city government and the so-called environmental groups on one hand and the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association on the other.
At the latest, the case was elevated to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals decided to junk it on the basis of constitutionality.