MUNNAR: Worried by the rising number of farmers killing themselves in Kerala with pesticides and insecticides they use in farming, the Indian Psychiatrists Society (IPS) is planning to ask the Government to restrict the availability of these chemical poisons.

The IPS-Kerala has found that farmers use the pesticide route to death because of the toxic chemicals' easy availability at home or on the farm. In view of this, the IPS suggests that the sale of pesticides, insecticides and acids be strictly controlled.

"They should not be sold without a certificate from an authority like an agricultural officer," the IPS recommends to the Government in a "Position Paper and Action Plan on Farmers' Suicide" to be presented to the Chief Minister shortly. IPS functionaries told The Hindu that the position paper was the outcome of a study carried out by a team of psychiatrists on the causes for the high rate of suicide in Kerala, particularly among farmers.

The IPS-Kerala, which represents the over 200 psychiatrists practising in the State, discussed the position paper at its annual meeting held at Munnar recently. The paper, intended to be a guideline to the Government for its suicide prevention policy, makes a series of detailed recommendations.

"We hope that if the Government puts our short-term and long-term recommendations into practice, the number of suicides, particularly in the farm sector, could be significantly reduced," K. Sudarsan, an IPS-Kerala functionary, said.

The position paper seeks a ban on sale of pesticides and insecticides to a minor. It also wants the Government to compel pesticide-insecticide manufacturers to drastically reduce the lethal level of the toxins so that they would not kill humans when consumed. The psychiatrists pointed out that the current level of toxicity of the pesticides and insecticides was several folds higher than that required to kill pests and insects.

C.J. John, a senior Kochi psychiatrist who was the founder-director of the Maithri suicide helpline, said that both manufacture and sale of pesticides-insecticides should be regulated by the Government. Apart from reducing the toxicity level, their smell and taste should be changed too so that it would be hard for humans to consume them. "The smell should be made extremely pungent and the taste unbearably bitter so that the poison could repel people thinking of ending their lives," he said. Dr. John, who helped draft the position paper, recalled that in Sri Lanka, which had one of the highest suicide rates in the world, effective control of the pesticide manufacture and sale had helped reduce the rate of self-annihilation.

The position paper also wants the Government to discourage the raising of the `odullum' plant whose fruit (othalanga) is lethally toxic. In certain regions such as Alappuzha district and nearby places, othalanga is a preferred means of suicide. The plant is often raised as a hedge plant to demarcate homesteads in these parts of the State. Women are the main victims of this toxic fruit.

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