Decades Of Intensive Pesticide Use Haunt Uzbekistan's Agricultural Lands - ENS

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TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, July 20, 2009 (ENS) - Experts say agricultural land in northwest Uzbekistan is so permeated with pesticides from past decades that it still presents health risks for the farmers who work it.

The soil in Khorezm region and the adjacent autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan is still full of chlorine and other chemicals from the DDT used in cotton production in the Soviet period. So intensive was the use of pesticides from the 1940s to the end of the 1960s that the Khorezm and Karakalpakstan had 78 aerodromes used by crop-spraying planes.

By the early 1970s, DDT was banned as a general agricultural insecticide in the Soviet Union and the United States, and was outlawed by European states over the next few years. Some reports suggest the pesticide continued to be used in parts of the Soviet Union such as Central Asia. DDT can remain in the soil for years without breaking down, and given the large volumes used in Soviet Uzbekistan, it continues to contaminate farmland.

A scientist in Khorezm says he has data showing that soil contamination by chlorine-based pesticides is 30 times the permissible level.

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2009/2009-07-20-01.asp