Application intensity, cost and determinants of application
In general, farmers treated cauliflower more frequently than cabbage, and the overall quantity of active ingredients applied was higher in cauliflower production (Table 4).
On average, farmers used 9.9 kg/ha of pesticides in cabbage and 23.5 kg/ha in cauliflower.
Total number of sprays in cabbage averaged 8.5 in cabbage and 25.2 in cauliflower.
This pesticide use pattern on cauliflower confirms results from other studies for different parts of India.
For instance, Mukherjee (2003) recorded the highest endosulfan residues in cauliflower samples, among all the vegetables that had been tested in and around Delhi.
One hundred percent of cauliflower samples from Haryana were contaminated with chlorpyrifos and 30% of them had residue levels higher than the maximum residue limit (Kumari et al., 2004).
The application frequency differed across states (Fig. 1).
In West Bengal, one quarter of all farmers sprayed every 2–3 days, while in Gujarat, less than 5% of farmers sprayed at that frequency.
In West Bengal, 78% of farmers sprayed weekly or more frequently, in Karnataka, 70% of farmers sprayed weekly or more frequently, and in Gujarat, 43% of farmers sprayed weekly or more frequently.
Cocktail mixing of products was reported by two-thirds of all farmers.