"Community-based Pesticides Action Monitoring (CPAM)" is a short training organized by the Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD) at Dong Dat commune, Phu Luong district, Thai Nguyen province from December 19 – 20, 2016 with the aim of providing knowledge and tool for local people to monitore the usage of pesticides and herbicides in farming and daily life. This event is within the framework of the Project "Towards a non-toxic South-East Asia" funded by Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific(PAN-AP).
There were 21 local people (13 females and 8 males) who were core farmers of Dong Dat commune participating in the training and most of them have been applying pesticides and herbicides into their agricultural production (mainly for green-tea, rice and vegetable). Representative leaders from communal People's Committee, along with officials from Phu Luong Agriculture Extension Station (AES) and Plant Protection Station (PPS) were also invited to be the members of the training.
During two-day training session facilitated by Mr. Bui Quoc Quan (SRD programme officer) and Ms. Chu Thu Huyen (Head of Phu Luong PPS), the participants had opportunity to acquire more knowledge of pesticides and discuss about relating topics, including: local situation and residents' using habits of pesticides, their negative impacts to environment and human health, etc; process and tool for CPAM's implementation requirements and skills of using questionnaires for the best results. In addition, trainees openly shared their practical experience in agricultural work and analyzed the reasons for the bad practice of pesticide application to the farming.
Many interesting activities were also undertaken in order to connect trainees and stimulate their creativity, especially the session of "groupdrawing performance" with the topic of "The harm of pesticides to the environment and human health". This activity not only brought laughters to trainees but also helped them more deeply understanding the negative effects of pesticides and herbicides; therefore, reviewing their bad practice in doing agricultural work and preparing for the changes in the coming time.
After two-day training session, SRD programme officer with representative leaders from Communal PC, officials from AES, PPS and core farmers conducted 100 CPAM questionnaires by interviewing households at 3 communes, focusing on those had been using pesticides in a vast area of agricultural land (rice, green-tea and vegetables) around schools and received the active cooperation from local community.
Through the training session, many local residents are now proficient in classifying pesticides depending on packaging, brands, substance or hazardous concentration and understand regulations of using pesticides as well as pre-harvest interval. Importantly, they are fully aware of the importance of CPAM and traumatic effects of pesticides. They are all results that SRD and local community expected from this training.
Pictures on "The harm of pesticides to the environment and human health" by trainees
Trainees actively discussed the training content under the instruction of SRD programme officer and local officials
Core farmers and representative leaders from PC, local officials and SRD officer interviewed households for questionnaires
Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD)
No.31, Alley 19 Kim Dong Street, Hoang Mai District, Ha Noi
Phone: +84 24 3943 6676/78 | Fax: +84 24 3943 6449
