HIGI calls for tighter control of herbicide use

JAKARTA (JP): The Association of Indonesian Weed Scientists (HIGI) called yesterday for a control of herbicides to stop weeds from being resistant to herbicides.

The association's secretary general Edison Purba said it was time for the government, industrial sector and farmers to pay more serious attention to the use of herbicides because cases of weeds resistant to herbicides had multiplied worldwide.

"If in the 1970s there was only one species of weed resistant to herbicide in the United States, then in the early 1990s there are 130 weed species worldwide which are resistant to one or more herbicides," Purba said.

"It is time for us to manage the use of herbicide," he said.

Purba said the industrial sector and farmers in Indonesia kept using similar types of herbicides to destroy weeds, unaware that such a practice was no longer effective in destroying weeds and could even make weeds resistant to herbicides.

He said the government could control the use of herbicides through a regulation.

Purba said the government and public were not concerned about the herbicide resistance phenomenon because so far only one case had been reported in Indonesia, namely an edible riverine plant, called genjer in Simalungun regency, North Sumatra.

The genjer plant in the area has reportedly become resistant to a certain brand of the 2.4 D herbicide after being sprayed with the herbicide for four years.

According to Purba, herbicides were still useful in handling weeds due to the unavailability of alternative technology.

"The only way to prevent weeds from becoming resistant to herbicides is by mixing various herbicides of different types or using different herbicides in rotation," he said, adding that this method was ineffective in destroying weeds which were resistant to any type of herbicide.

The only herbicide which could destroy herbicide-resistant weeds was paraquat, he said.

The Indonesian government, however, limits the sale of paraquat herbicide because it is poisonous to humans. (jsk)