By Ebere Agozie, News Agency of Nigeria
As the world is grappling with the effects of climate change and food insecurity, Africa is not only racing against these challenges but is also neck-deep into a bigger monster poisoning every plate of food eaten which more often than not, contains residues of poisonous pesticides and herbicides used by farmers in the food production process.
Growing demand for food in Africa poses considerable challenges to agricultural production, especially in West Africa where banditry and cattle rustling have chased famers away from their farmlands leaving the region with less farmlands and the little that is in cultivation is already degraded and filled with poisonous chemicals.
Much of the food in Africa, especially West Africa, is under threat by the importers of these poisons substances farmers use – and these are highly hazardous pesticides used in the continent’s food sector.
These pesticides, according to experts, pose serious risks to human health and the environment, thus imperiling the health of innocent farmers and consumers who would be suffering devastating effects on their health without knowing the sources of their strange illnesses.
According to available information, most of these chemicals being imported into the country are all banned by the Western countries, and no wonder the majority of the food produced in Africa is rejected by the very same nations that produce these chemicals in the first place.
This is an especially worrisome issue because the majority of the farmers who produce the food have little or no education and are thus unable to understand the full implications of the health hazards posed by the continued use of these farm inputs.
Sanni Ismail, a farmer in Bauchi state, simply points that the fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides he uses ensure that he gets high yields from his farm.
“Although I have heard people talk about the dangers of so many farm chemicals; I have been using them for years now and I have not seen any negative effects on my health and that of my farm workers.
Another farmer, Stephen Onuoha from Ohaukwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi state insists that the portion of land he owns is too small to adopt shifting cultivation and therefore he has to rely on chemical fertilizers to expect reasonable harvests.
The most important factor to note here is that these farmers are not particularly bothered about the chemical hazards in the food they grow and sell to the consumers out there but their interest is only in making as much financial gains as possible.
This simply takes us back to the producers of these chemicals who clearly know how harmful their products are but would nonetheless go ahead to produce them. Knowing full well that they cannot sell them but only dump them on Africa.
This raises a moral as well as a logical question: why produce these chemicals, when you will not allow them to be used in your own countries? Why reject the food produced with the aid of these chemicals if you think that there are hazardous to human health?
The answer is of course pretty straightforward – money.
The West African sub-region, as is indeed the rest of Africa, has long been a veritable ground for these harmful substances that come in the form of fertilizers and other farm inputs.
The proliferation of illnesses (most of which defy precise diagnosis) in this region, certainly calls for concerted efforts by stakeholders in the food and agriculture sector to truly begin to tame this menace.
The question is who will bell the cat? Who will tell the innocent uneducated farmer that the chemicals being marketed for bumper harvest are poisonous and carcinogenic? Who will make the farmer understand that his life, the lives of his family members and those of their customers, are at risk?
Who will let the public know that those delicious foods on their plates are laced with residues of poison that gradually destroys their health?
To proffer solutions to this state of affairs, ActionAid International through the Strategic Partnerships for Agroecology and Climate Justice in West Africa (SPAC-West Africa) brought together Journalists from across West Africa to brainstorm on the need to commence the promotion of the principles of agroecology in the region as an alternative to the use of dangerous chemicals, harmful to our environment.
ActionAid in its engagement of regional media at the agroecology and climate justice webinar, said the call was to get the media as the watchdog, to raise awareness on the dangers of chemical pesticides, and the promotion of viable agricultural practices in Africa.
Mr Azubike Nwokoye, the ActionAid Nigeria Deputy Country Director and Food and Agriculture Programme Manager, noted that the event will enhance climate change and agriculture reporters’ knowledge on agroecology and climate justice.
He said the knowledge will enhance in-depth reportage and promotion of agroecology and climate justice which will in turn contribute towards the elimination of hazardous chemicals from our soil and thereby improve resilient nature-based solution towards food and nutrition security in the face of climate change in West Africa.
“The media will additionally, through increased reportage and promotion of agroecology, contribute to the integration of agroecology into government extension services at local, national, and regional levels, which is an innovation that will lead to scale and sustainability, promote equitable adaptation and transition measures that benefit frontline communities.”
At the event, Mr Donald Ikenna, Program Coordinator, Heinrich Boell Foundation Nigeria while speaking on the topic ‘The Challenges of Highly Hazardous Pesticides in West Africa and Agroecology as an Alternative’, said that the burden of the negative effects of pesticides is felt most by the poor and vulnerable communities in countries that have less stringent enforcement mechanisms.
According to him, “WHO estimated that 1–5 million cases of pesticide poisoning occur every year among agricultural workers and result in 20,000 fatalities, most of these in developing nations.
“WHO self-assessment reports, show that a number of Member States including Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia reported poisoning incidents from the use of hazardous pesticides.
“For example, pesticide-related poisoning events continue to occur countrywide in Kenya, with a total of 1,479 cases and 579 fatalities reported in 2012.
“ In Uganda, pesticide poisoning incidents that occurred in 2012 in Wakiso and in 2013 in Pallisa caused a total of 87 fatalities, although data on pesticide-related deaths and cases are not systematically captured by the governments in the regions.”
Ikenna disclosed that over the last five years, pesticide imports into Africa have increased significantly. He added that most of these harmful pesticides and herbicides are banned by the western world.
He said that in West Africa, the imports of these chemicals have doubled in five years, from 218,948 tons in 2015 to 437,930 tons in 2020.
“In 2020, Nigeria’s imports alone (147,446 tons) exceeded the total imports of Southern Africa (87,403 tons) and North Africa (109,561 tons).
“Despite increasing imports in these regions, the informal nature of agricultural production has made it difficult to record how pesticides are used hence the big differences between the imported quantities and use data”.
However, judging from the questions by the participating journalists, one would conclude that most journalists have not being up and doing in educating the people on this monster ravaging the continent of Africa.
With the threats of pesticides, it is urgent and pertinent for the media to intensify the awareness on adopting agricultural and environmental policies that support agroecology and limit the use of toxic pesticides.
It is therefore time to rethink agricultural practices on the African continent and to favor approaches that respect the environment and human health.
In addition to media advocacy and farmer education, there is obviously a great need to promote many more appropriate legislations, and to vigorously pursue their implementations.
