According to vegetable seller, Kashif Hameed, the use of refined poison to kill pests on vegetables is playing havoc with the lives of the people who are unaware of what is being done to them for some extra financial gains.
He states that the chemicals are generally used to kill pests on vegetables like spinach, carrot, eggplant, broccoli, red chard, cabbage, fenugreek leaves, lettuce and mushrooms, but traders are turning to alternative methods.
“The pests evolve a resistance against a chemical after some years, due to which new kind of chemical is needed to remove them. Non-availability of new kinds of chemicals in Pakistan makes it difficult to kill all the pests from the vegetables, due to which the wholesale dealers use poison for this purpose,” he said. He said water is collected in big jars and utensils and then poison is mixed with it thoroughly on low heat, adding - “The vegetables are inserted into this poisonous water to kill pests. It helps remove pests but poison makes its way into outer layer of these vegetables.”
Kashif Hameed said one can imagine what poisonous vegetables can do to the health of the people and it is being done everywhere to get profits. The main reason for the use is how cheap the poison is. At only RS 300, dealers can rid their produce of pests while other forms prove to be much more expensive.
