pesticide companies, that are members of the Brussels-based Global Crop Protection Federation ( gcpf ), have taken up the responsibility of cleaning up their products in developing countries. " gcpf companies will contribute financially once they have been able to identify which of their products are truly obsolete,' said Chris Waller, chairperson of gcpf obsolete stocks project team.

According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation ( fao ), there are around 500,000 tonnes of obsolete pesticides stored in different parts of the world that need to be disposed off (see p13). The organisation claims that a "significant part' of stocks come from companies that are non- gcpf members. Some of the members of the federation include Aventis, Bayer, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont, Monsanto, Sumitomo and Syngenta.

The cleaning-up process will not be easy. Representatives of the gcpf feel that large amount of funds would be needed for the cleaning-up. Donations by the us , Dutch and Swedish governments are enough to remove only 1,500 tonnes of these harmful chemicals.