VietNamNet Bridge - As pesticides are easily available and can be bought by anyone, local authorities have found it difficult to control pollution.

“If flowers are sick, they need to be treated with pesticide. The drugs made of herbs will not help,” Nguyen Dinh Quang, a farmer in Ha Loi hamlet in Me Linh commune told reporters.

Nguyen Quang Sang, also from Ha Loi hamlet, confirmed that if he does not spray roses with fungicides, the trees will not survive the scorching sun.

When asked where he would throw empty pesticide bottles, Sang said: “Any place I can”.

“We heard that dioxin exists in weedkiller. But we still have to use it, or roses will die,” he said.

In the flower village of Me Linh, pesticide shops can be seen everywhere, from small to big ones with signboards hung over the entrance doors. Duong village alone has 3-4 shops.

The shops are crowded with many buyers. The same situation exists in nearby Dinh and Cho villages. There are no fewer than 20 such shops in the commune of Me Linh.

The owner of Hien Nhung shop refused to reveal information about sales, but confirmed that fungicides were used to ‘cool’ roses on hot days.

“This is what all farmers do,” the owner said. 

“They do not care about dosage, though I try to remind them that the dosage for winter must be different from that for summer. They will still spray pesticide until they find insects are killed and they will buy as much as they can,” she said.

When asked about pollution, an official of the Me Linh commune’s local authorities said, “We have tried every means without success.”

In the past, the commune’s authorities asked to set up teams in charge of collecting empty pesticide bottles thrown away after use. However, no one wants to undertake this job. 

The chemicals left in the bottles have been leaching into the ground and flowing to the canal nearby, thus contaminating the water source. “No fish can live in the canal now,” he said.

According to Nguyen Thi Binh, deputy head of the Me Linh Healthcare Center, all of the local people are now using water from the wells they drill themselves.

However, Binh does not think the underground water is affected by pesticides, because the water wells are all 20-30 meters in depth. She believes that the problem is the air pollution.

“A lot of florists do not wear protective gear when spraying pesticide,” she said.

Nong Nghiep