Use of the farm chemical methyl bromide will be phased out around the world within 18 years, and in Canada by 2005, representatives of more than 110 countries decided at a Montreal environmental conference last week.
In all developed countries, farmers will have to find alternatives within eight years, with a steady decline called for in the intervening years.
In Canada, according to federal secretary of state for agriculture Gilbert Normand, use of the once-popular fumigant has declined 35 percent from 1991 levels as governments, industry and farmers work to find alternatives.
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Farmers in developing countries, who remain more dependent on the chemical to reduce pest damage in stored crops, must eliminate use of the chemical by the year 2015, according to the terms of the Montreal agreement.
Methyl bromide is a chemical once widely used to fumigate soil on strawberry plots in order to kill nematodes, as well as to fumigate grain storage silos and buildings against beetles.
Implicated in damage
While it is an effective fumigant, scientists say it is one of the most harmful chemicals implicated in the destruction of the ozone layer, which surrounds the earth and protects it from some of the more deadly effects of the sun’s radiation.
Researchers have linked holes in the ozone layer to increased sunburns, cataracts, skin cancer and damage to crops.
In 1995, nations that signed a treaty to help preserve the ozone agreed to work toward phasing out methyl bromide.
Last week, it was agreed to give developing countries more phase-out time because they use the chemical more extensively and it is important for preservation of their harvests.
Even in the developed world, large amounts of the chemical are still used.
Despite Normand’s brag that Canada is ahead of schedule in reducing use of the chemical, Agriculture Canada estimates that farmers still used 199,562 kilograms of the chemical in 1995, sprayed as a gas which then dissipates into the air and attacks the ozone layer.
Meanwhile, politicians and officials at the Montreal meeting were congratulating themselves over their 1987 decision to acknowledge reports of a declining ozone shield.
A study prepared by Environment Canada estimated it was a political decision with a multi-billion dollar payoff.
According to the report, over the next six decades to the year 2060, replenishment of the ozone lawyer will mean:
- The cumulative benefit to agriculture through increased production value would be $191 billion.
- There would be 333,000 fewer deaths world wide from skin cancer.
To arrive at its agriculture estimate, the department imagines that no controls on ozone-depleting chemicals would have led to increasing damage to the plant growth cycle and in some cases, plant genetic makeup.
Yields would be worse and the quality of plants harvested would deteriorate, it says.
