By Anda Damisa
Nigerians are dying every day with every meal we consume. Are you shocked? I was as shocked as you are right now when I found this out recently. We have a major problem right before us and it seems like no one is talking about it so, here I am, writing about the increasing dangers we face due to the proliferation of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) in Nigeria.
Chemical pesticides use leaves
residues in the food we eat. Leaving us exposed to their associated risk.
Traces of pesticides can be found everywhere from our fruits to our water,
vegetables, in the air and even in the bees which are very important in the
farming ecosystem. Its dangerous effects are long-lasting and devastating. The
World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 385 Million people fall ill
every year globally from pesticide poisoning. Developing countries in the
Global South (Africa, Nigeria inclusive) experience 99% of pesticide-related
deaths, even though they comparatively produce very little pesticide. A lot of
pesticide-related deaths are either unreported or attributed to unnatural
causes yet pesticide imports into African countries especially Nigeria are
increasing, a lot of these pesticides fall into the highly hazardous category.
Studies have revealed how pesticides contaminate
rivers, lakes and groundwater causing too many adverse consequences. These
pesticides don’t just endanger our rights to food; they also endanger our right
to good health and a safe environment. Even the United Nations considers these
HHPs a Global Human Rights concern.
One of the major pesticide tragic cases in Nigeria
happened in Benue State in 2020 where over 270 people died from an initially
diagnosed ‘mystery ailment’. It was later discovered that they had been poisoned
by a banned highly hazardous pesticide used by farmers in nearby farmlands that
had seeped into the local river. In 2013, 23 school students
in Bihar, India, died within minutes after eating a meal of rice and potato
curry as part of a lunch programme against malnutrition. The investigation
found that the meal had been prepared with cooking oil that contained the
pesticide monocrotophos. This is why the increasing rate of food poisoning
recently in Nigeria has been a serious source of concern for me.
The effects of these HHPs on our poor public health care system is
mounting but sadly we can’t even keep track because we lack a proper research
and data system which makes gathering information on how these pesticides are
used and the impact they are having on human health almost impossible. That is
more reason for concern.
I was in Abuja recently where I was privileged to listen to the Director,
Heinrich BÖLL Stifung Foundation in Nigeria, Mr. Jochen Lucksheiter, speak on
the dangers we face from the increasing use of HHPs by our farmers in the
country. “Based on the research that we have done on pesticides in Nigeria, we
have found that what is particularly concerning about the high use of
Pesticides in this country is that many of the Pesticides that are being used
especially by small-scale farmers are those that are in the category of highly
toxic pesticides’’ He said.
“And these are already banned pesticides in countries with high environmental and public health standards such as the US, Japan and the EU, but are still being produced and exported to countries like Nigeria, they are also still getting registered and sold legally.
The HHPs list of the international Pesticide Action Network (PAN) currently
contains 338 Highly Hazardous pesticides with high levels of acute or chronic
hazards to health or the environment according to international
classifications, many of these HHPs are still used in Nigeria.
In 2018 and 2019, EU countries and the United Kingdom approved the export of a
total of 140,908 tonnes of pesticides that are banned from being applied in
European fields because of unacceptable health and environmental risks. This is
only possible because we lack effective enforcement and regulations around the
use of Pesticides in Nigeria.
Available
data from 2015 to 2019 from NAFDAC’s Green Book product database, lists 682
synthetic chemical pesticide products (excluding chemical repellents)
registered. More than half of these products include active ingredients that
are not approved in the European market. NAFDAC Pesticide Registration
Regulation 2021 section 12(1) states that registered pesticides are only for a
period of 5 years. So by Implication many of the registered pesticide products
within the space 2015 and 2019 would have been deregistered and phased out by
now- hopefully? One would have to access more data on registered products from
NAFDAC to clear the unsettled discomfort suggested by the data within the
period.
We are not just suffering from the impacts of using HHPs
health-wise, we are also losing economically. In 2015, the European Union
banned the import of dried beans and other agricultural products from Nigeria
because they contained levels of pesticide residues considered dangerous to
human health. Nigeria loses about $ 362.5 million yearly in foreign exchange to
the ban on the exportation of just beans in the last 8 years. Several of
Nigeria’s home-grown crops have continually been rejected when exported. These
are huge economic losses to Nigeria.
One of the key demands every Nigerian should be making is for the
government to create regulations and laws that ban these highly hazardous
substances from being imported. In fact, Nigeria needs to join countries like
Tunisia, Mexico and Palestine, which have laws banning the import of pesticides
that have been banned in the Exporting or manufacturing counties. Delegates of
Nigeria that represent us in international conventions need to take a strong
stand against accepting and trade of Highly Hazardous Pesticides, especially
those banned in more advanced countries that even have better facilities to
ensure safety and a more advanced health care system to address the health
hazards when it occurs.
However, an import ban on these highly toxic substances can only
do so much. There have to be thorough registration processes for pesticides in
general. Effective pesticide control, aggressive sensitisation on the dangers
of pesticides especially for the local farmers who oftentimes are unaware of
the adverse effects of the methods they employ in their farming and the
application of other safer methods of farming.
Research and real-life practices here in Nigeria have shown that
there are alternate farming methods that work like the agroecology farm I
experienced when I visited the Be The Help Foundation agroforestry project
located at Damokosa village in Kwali LGA in the FCT, Abuja. Farmers here have
embraced agroecology, a branch of agriculture that promotes farming practices
like the growing of crops naturally without the use of fertilizers. Interestingly,
most traditional farm practices do not use chemical farm inputs, and our
fathers and ancestors thrived as nature-based farmers.
Sustainable farming and environmental management practices need to be promoted
in Nigeria. An ecological future is possible, and Nigeria can be the organic
capital of the world.
Until then, we live with a ticking time bomb. Every meal we
consume daily is slowly killing us, our environment is under grave threat and
it’s never been more imperative to act as it is right now. Let us enlighten
ourselves, do the same for others, then speak out and let our voice be heard to
safeguard our health and our future.
*Damisa is an author and a Digital Media Strategist based in Lagos.
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