The Hindu Business Line : ‘Weeds are agents of bio-terror’

Besides posing a challenge to increasing food production, weeds, according to Dr C. Ramaswamy, Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, are agents of bio-terrorism.

“While liberalisation of economy resulted in increased imports and exports of agricultural commodities and underscored the need for rigorous quarantine measures, India should ensure that invasive weeds do not gain entry into its ports as it happened in the case of two noxious weeds viz., presopis and parthenium,” he said, addressing a five-day training on National Invasive Weed Surveillance (NIWS).

Citing statistics, he said the world food loss due to weeds is estimated at around 287 million tonnes, accounting for 11.5 per cent of the food production. In India, the monetary loss caused by weeds is about Rs 3,000 crore.

The crop yield loss in cereals is estimated at 33 m tonnes. Pulses lose 20 m tonnes, oilseeds lose 26 m tonnes and fibre and commercial crops lose 8 m tonnes.

Surveillance Project

The NIWS project was launched on an outlay of Rs 666.45 lakh for a two-year period (2008-10) to detect and check the exotic weeds that gained entry through imported wheat.

While highlighting the project profile, he said: “Early detection and eradication of regulated weeds is critical since invasive weeds have the potential to spread to non-wheat areas and pose serious health problems. Plant protection measures would, therefore, be required to contain and manage these weeds.”

He pointed out that the project is aimed at detecting regulated weeds and formulate eradication programmes to avoid its spread.

The programme was organised at the agriculture varsity in association with the National Research Centre for Weed Science, Jabalpur.

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