14 hours Ago By Rohini Krishnamurthy
India has reportedly opposed the inclusion of a hazardous insecticide under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international environmental treaty to protect human health and the environment. The insecticide, Chlorpyrifos, is a chemical linked to adverse effects on neurodevelopment, reduced birth size, lung and prostate cancer upon chronic exposure. Delegates from across the world gathered at meetings of the conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) conventions in Geneva, Switzerland, from April 28 to May 9, 2025.
Basel and Rotterdam are also multilateral environmental agreements, which share the common objective of protecting human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals and wastes. Chlorpyrifos is listed as a candidate Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) under the Stockholm Convention after the European Union nominated it for global phase-out in 2021. POPs are a cause for concern because they remain persistent a long time, widely distributed throughout the environment they accumulate and magnify in living organisms through the food chain and are toxic to both humans and wildlife.
Prior to the meeting, in 2024, the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC) — a subsidiary body to the Stockholm Convention established for reviewing chemicals proposed for listing — recommended Chlorpyrifos’ inclusion in Annex A to the Convention. The Stockholm Convention lists chemicals in three annexes. While Annex A lists chemicals to be eliminated, Annex B and C lists chemicals to be restricted, and minimising unintentional production and release of listed chemicals.
However, POPRC allow three exemptions for Chlorpyrifos: plant protection, control on ticks for cattle and wood preservation. These recommendations were taken up by delegates at the BRS conventions for consensus. On day one of the negotiations at the BRS Convention, India stressed that since there are no alternatives, the listing could impact food security, according to International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).
Others like Tunisia, Pakistan, Serbia, Switzerland, the European Union, the Maldives, Uruguay, Guyana, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, Iraq, and Norway supported listing chlorpyrifos in Annex A. Nations like Cameroon, Kenya and Zambia, suggested certain exemptions. For example, Cameroon asked that the chemical be continued to be used for pests, crickets, cotton seeds, and locusts while Kenya called for exemptions in veterinarian and termite control applications.
It was then decided that countries would discuss this matter in contact groups, an informal working group. On April 29, the contact group discussed the 11 new exemptions, in addition to the three recommended by the POPRC. The new exemptions are for particular crop pests in cotton, eggplant, sugarcane, wheat, barley, teff, maize and sorghum, sugar beet, chickpea, cabbage, and onion, as well as control of locusts and leaf-cutting ants.
The contact group is working to reduce the number of exemptions. Some parties questioned the need for exemptions. “They pointed out that countries with similar agricultural conditions had successfully banned chlorpyrifos or are using alternatives for those crops,” according to IISD.
This is not the first time that India has opposed to the inclusion of a chemical. In 2010, at the sixth meeting of POPRC held in Geneva in October, India rejected the proposal to ban endosulfan globally. “India has opposed endosulfan’s inclusion as well,” Narasimha Donthi Reddy, a visiting faculty (honorary) at Delhi-based Impact and Policy Research Institute told Down To Earth .
He also suspects the role of industrial lobbying. Chlorpyrifos has been registered in India under the Insecticides Act since 1977. In 2016-17, chlorpyrifos was the most frequently used pesticide in India, accounting for 9.
4 per cent of the total insecticide consumption, according to a report by the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN). Previously, the pesticide was mainly produced in North America and Europe. Now, China and India are the biggest producers of chlorpyrifos, according to a 2024 report from the UK government.
The report also states that several countries, including India, China and Malaysia, have highlighted the importance of chlorpyrifos in public health applications such as controlling urban pests like cockroaches, and termites, and also potentially in the control of vector-borne diseases The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified chlorpyrifos as a moderately hazardous pesticide. The chemical inhibits an enzyme called acetyl cholinesterase, which results in adverse nervous system effects. The pesticide enters the environment through direct application to crops, lawns, houses and other buildings.
When inhaled, it can cause a variety of effects on the nervous system including headaches, blurred vision, watering of the eyes, excessive salivation, runny nose, dizziness, confusion, muscle weakness or tremors, nausea, diarrhoea, and sudden changes in heart rate. Animal studies have not shown that chlorpyrifos causes cancer. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has classified chlorpyrifos as a possible human carcinogen.
The other route of exposure is through diet from residues of chlorpyrifos on food crops. A 2024 study published in Environmental Research tested the presence of 94 pesticides in several food products belonging to five types like cereals and pulses, vegetables, fruits, animal-based foods, and water in markets in Delhi and in the peri-urban area of Dehradun. The paper detected 30 pesticides, of which chlorpyrifos was the most detected with a detection frequency of 33 per cent.
According to the Pesticide Action Network, over 40 countries have banned Chlorpyrifos. The Anupam Verma Committee, constituted in 2013 to review 66 pesticides that had been banned, restricted, or withdrawn in other countries, but still in use in India, submitted its report in 2015. It recognised that chlorpyrifos is toxic to fish and bees.
It also recommended a review of 27 others, including chlorpyrifos, in 2018 after completion of recommended studies. A 2023 press release from the Union Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare noted that the ministry has so far banned or phased out 46 pesticides and four pesticide formulations for import, manufacture or use in the country. Chlorpyrifos was not on the list.
In March 2025, the Pesticide Action Network released a report on non-chemical alternatives to chlorpyrifos, which was compiled from official advisories from the Department of Agriculture, Government of India and crop production guides available from state agriculture departments and universities. “The Indian government has been promoting national mission on natural farming (a Centrally Sponsored Scheme under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare). We do have alternatives,” Dhonti says.
In addition to Chlorpyrifos, other chemicals like Medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (used as flame retardants and plasticizers in plastics, as well as lubricants and coolants for metal forming operations) and long-chain perfluorocarboxylic acids (LC-PFCAs), their salts, and related compounds (used in personal care products, cleaning products, and surface treatments for textiles, upholstery, leather, automotive parts, carpet and paper products, and packaging) will be discussed under the Stockholm Convention..
