They pose the greatest danger to the African continent today. They are hazardous, portend grim and fatal implications and adversely affect all living things.
These are obsolete pesticides.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that three million people are poisoned and 200,000 die each year due to pesticides. A majority of these casualties are drawn from vulnerable, poverty stricken populations, agricultural workers and children.
According to Pesticides Action Network (PAN) this problem stems from a cluster of factors. “Causes of the problem are many and include the banning of pesticide products after import into the country, supply of banned products to countries in the form of aid, oversupply or duplicate supply by different aid agencies, poorly packaged or labeled products and inappropriate formulations of pesticides for local use.”

Previously, FAO estimated that the amount of obsolete pesticides in the continent stood at around 50,000 tonnes. But this fact has since been disapproved. The amount is higher than originally thought and not a single African country is free of the ignominy posed by these poisons.

“Every African country has stockpiles of obsolete pesticides and associated waste such as heavily contaminated soils and millions of containers. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that the toxic waste in Africa alone amounts to around 120,000 tonnes, with more than 500,000 tonnes worldwide.” FAO expert on obsolete pesticides, Alemayehu Wodageneh, candidly warns.

30 per cent of the 120,000 tonnes are estimated to be amongst the dreaded persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the blacklisted ‘dirty dozen’ pesticides which have been banned worldwide. “These pesticides seriously threaten the health of both rural and urban populations, especially the poorest of the poor, and contribute to land degradation and water pollution.” Wodageneh asserts.

Efforts to dispose off these hazardous materials have suffered major setbacks. Most of Africa is composed of poor and heavily indebted developing countries. The problem of disposing obsolete pesticides is slow as most of these countries lack the appropriate technology for such an exercise. Indeed there are inadequate waste destruction facilities in Africa today. This state of affairs simply means that the hazardous waste has to be shipped back to the developed countries where they are disposed off in high-temperature incinerators, but at a cost. At the moment the cost of incinerating obsolete pesticides stands at $3500 per tonne. According to FAO the full costs of disposing all obsolete pesticides in Africa are a whooping US $80 to 100 million. A cost that many of these countries can hardly shoulder.

To this end FAO’s efforts to raise money for the project from governments, international agencies, industry and institutions have been strained by myriad bottlenecks. Foot dragging by the rich countries and the concerned industries is a major factor that undermines FAO’s drive.
But forget the dangers, the cruelest factor of this scenario is that pesticides are a multi-billion profit driven industry, and the general public is not privy to this facet. In a thought provoking expose, “New Internationalist” in its dossier titled Pesticides: Pick Your Poison, reveals:
“Pesticides are big business. If you drew a chart of the growth of the industry from virtually zero in the 1940s to an agrochemical market worth $31 billion in 1998, the incline would resemble a cliff face. And it grows each year: 1998 was up 5% on 1997. Corporations are constantly merging to form ever-bigger conglomerations; for example, Novartis was formed from the merger of Ciba and Sandoz and is now planning to merge with Zeneca to form Syngenta. AgrEvo (itself a merger of Hoechst and Schering) is merging with Rhone-Poulenc to form Aventis. The two new corporations will be the biggest agrochemical companies in the world…Agribusiness is a mindset, a way of thinking which dominates our current model of industrial agriculture and is inextricably linked to increased use of agro-chemicals. It is an approach to food production which sees the soil only as a source of profit and the earth as a resource to plunder. It dismisses pesticides poisonings as accidents and refuses to acknowledge the links between health and the environment and the increased use of pesticides. It sees agriculture only as business and farmers as business people rather than guardians of the land.

“The corporations which profit from the pesticide industry have a vested interest in keeping it alive – or in replacing it with one in which genetically modified crops reign supreme. That’s because pesticides make money: In 1998 the business was worth $31 billion. And much of it resides in the hands of a few companies: 10 agrochemical corporations’ control 73 per cent of the world market in pesticides; the top 20 control 93 per cent… Corporations are constantly merging to form ever bigger conglomerations.” Indeed these mergers have seen Novartis and Aventis coming out as the biggest agrochemical companies in the world
But the dossier doesn’t end there:

“So what has been the argument for the continuing use of pesticides? Mainly that they increase crop yields. But at what price? Unfortunately, over time some pests gradually become resistant to certain pesticides which means that companies have to come up with stronger and more deadly chemicals to try to kill them. It’s an escalating cycle of poison. The corporations defend their position by saying that only by using pesticides can we feed a hungry world. (The same arguments are used for genetically modified crops – but then many of these are produced by the same companies that make the pesticides)…But this question ignores three crucial factors. First, world hunger is not caused by food shortages. There is more than enough food for everyone. The world today produces more food per person than ever before. People are hungry because they are too poor to buy the food available, not because there is not enough. We don’t need more food; we just need a fairer way of distributing it…the rise of the pesticide industry has helped transform agriculture into ’agribusiness’.” It notes with fervour.

These disclosures further lift the veil to showcase the five major pesticide producing nations. They are Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland and the US. The findings are a gory indictment on these nations and their corporations.

But all is not lost. Organic farming and integrated pesticide management (IPM) which merges, indigenous knowledge, biological control, farming technology and traditional cropping practices to control pests are the new frontiers of agriculture which seeks to empower farmers and discourage over reliance on pesticides. J G Mwangi the manager of Kenya’s National Cypress Aphid Project notes in his paper “Integrated Pest Management Model for Kenya”: “Integrated pest management (IPM) is defined as the optimization of pest control in an economically and ecologically sound manner. It is a recipe of biological, cultural, genetic, mechanical and chemical tactics used individually or in combination to maintain pest damage below the economic injury level, while providing protection against hazards to humans, animals, plants and the environment.”

Both IPM and organic farming which are so far the best alternatives to pesticides are fast growing agricultural practices and a sign of better times ahead in the agricultural sector. The New Internationalist concludes: “Extensive pesticide use is a symptom of an agricultural system that is no longer about food or people, the land or the environment, but just about profits. Reclaiming the ways that farming is managed also means reducing our dependence on dangerous chemicals. And thousands of farmers and consumers are doing just that.”