Coordinador:
Tipo
- Proyecto
Objetivo General:
Identify pesticides and use patterns which can be considered Highly Hazardous in the Costa Rican context, using a life cycle approach and promote politics and alternatives for risk reduce.
Vigencia:
2015 - 2018
Resumen:
This innovative, multi-stakeholder project will directly address the serious problems caused by Highly Hazardous Pesticide (HHP) use, risky practices and pesticide-related harm to human health, biodiversity and natural resources in Costa Rica. It will be implemented as a civil society project by the Regional Institute for Research on Toxic Substances (IRET), collaborating with the National University and the National SAICM Focal Point in the Ministry of Environment (MINAE). The project will address the inadequate management of pesticides throughout their lifecycle from import, regulation, to distribution, use and disposal of waste and empty containers. It will engage decision makers in government agencies and in the agricultural sector, farmers cultivating at small, medium and large scales and civil society organisations including NGOs, trades unions, researchers and students in awareness-raising about the FAO/WHO HHP initiative. Stakeholders together will identify priority actions needs and develop a National HHP Action Plan for the country.
Main capacity-building activities will try out alternative, ecologically-sound pest, disease and weed management practices successfully used elsewhere, with a focus on coffee and pineapple production, working with farmer groups to assess their feasibility in the Costa Rican context and with certification standards and supply chain actors to help promote their uptake. HHP awareness and risk reduction training will be conducted with farm workers, trade unions and smallscale farm families. Project results and lessons will be assessed and shared via a Central American regional workshop, hosted by the applicant IRET, and globally through PAN UK, the international partner. PAN UK will facilitate links with certification standards, retailers and the FAO JPMP HHP Working Group and provide expert inputs on non-chemical pest management, including dissemination channels for a current FAO-supported project on ?Growing Coffee without Endosulfan?.