State accountability urged amid pesticide-related child deaths
|Published
It has taken the recent tragic and avoidable deaths of children to expose the pesticide industry and government’s broader unwillingness to ban highly hazardous pesticides.
This was according to NGO Women on Farms which has been advocating for the banning of pesticides for several years in light of the effects of pesticide exposure experienced by farmworkers and dwellers.
Their sentiments come after the Department of Agriculture on Tuesday said it has ruled out immediate plans to impose a wholesale ban on the use of pesticides, amid food poisoning incidents linked to snacks bought at local spaza shops reported in parts of Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, and Limpopo.
Following an investigation by the department of health last month, the cause of death was found to be the lethal organophosphate, a group of substances, which are usually used in agriculture or as pesticides. In the deaths of six of the children, the organophosphate identified was called Terbufos.
Women on Farms said while their vision was a “pesticides-free future”, in the interim they are calling for “an immediate ban of extremely hazardous and highly hazardous pesticides” as listed by the World Health Organisation.
WOF director, Colette Solomon said: “Although Terbufos has been banned in the EU, it is still widely used in South Africa, including on citrus farms and, as sadly shown by the deaths of children, to control pests.
It is important that we, as citizens, hold our government complicit in the deaths of these children, and not spaza shop owners.”
She said the department did not “effectively enforce existing laws on farms, thus farmers continue to violate workers’ rights by exposing them to pesticides, not providing PPE”.
She also said health staff, “especially in rural clinics and hospitals, were not trained to link various symptoms which patients present with, to their exposure to pesticides, resulting in an under-reporting and documenting of pesticide poisoning”.
“Immediately ban all pesticides and active ingredients that are banned in their countries of origin. Immediately introduce less toxic, lower-risk and more sustainable alternatives,” Solomon called for.
The department this week said it had the regulatory framework that ensures that farmers and the general public have access to safe and effective pesticides, while at the same time protect and manage the human and environmental health risks associated with pesticides.
The department said it would continue to strengthen regulatory measures to protect the environment and people from potential impacts of highly hazardous pesticides.
Meanwhile UCT Environmental Health Professor Leslie London said the legislative framework regulating pesticides is not fit for purpose.
“It’s 75 years old and the government knows, has issued two policy papers, but continues to issue regulations under a law that should have been replaced long ago. The current law relies on the label as an insurance for industry who have no legal responsibility to ensure safety once it has been sold. They blame everyone else, but National Environmental Management Act (and our Constitution) say that there must be cradle to grave responsibility for environmental hazards. (The) industry is getting off scot-free. And the government is abetting this.”
He added that he did not believe the recent incidents were a surge, as it could be a case “of a greater awareness of an ongoing problem”.
“The minister is merely repeating the rhetoric of industry, like so many ministers before him. He needs to look at the evidence of countries that have adopted pesticide reductions measures without economic collapse.
Sri Lanka has a massive problem of deaths from suicide using pesticides. They consulted scientists and decided to ban the most toxic pesticides. Industry protested that they needed pesticides for food security and that people will still kill themselves with different methods.
What happened? Death rates from suicide declined in Sri Lanka, there was no impact on food production.
The government should ban the worst actors and take steps to restrict access to other agents that are hazardous,” London said.
Cape Times