ON 24 August 1999, in the Benin village of Maregourou, three brothers aged 12
to 14 went to weed a field of cotton and maize belonging to their father. A day
earlier he had sprayed the field with the pesticide endosulfan. A witness told
the Pesticide News the rest: “After the work they were hungry and they
took a few maize cobs to eat. Fifteen minutes later they started vomiting. They
were taken to the hospital of Bembereke where one boy of 12 died. The two others
˛őłÜ°ů±ąľ±±ą±đ»ĺ.”
Nine years earlier, pesticide manufacturers had launched the Safe Use
training and education programme precisely to prevent incidents like these. But
they are still happening around the world with sickeningly regularity.
Safe Use started with pilot schemes in Guatemala, Thailand and Kenya, and now
covers 25 countries. It is designed to teach people the rudimentary safety
measures that drastically cut the dangers of using pesticides. But critics argue
that the overall impact of the training schemes is minimal and that new
approaches are needed to tackle the pesticide problem. The failings are
particularly acute in many parts of the developing world where people can’t
read, are not given safety clothing or work in conditions that make such
equipment too hot to wear.
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Around half of the world’s labour force works in agriculture—60 per
cent of them in developing countries, according to the International Labour
Organization. Although these countries use up only around 20 per cent of the
world’s agrochemicals, the ILO says that 70 per cent of acute agrochemical
poisonings happen here. The World Health Organization estimates that between 2
and 5 million pesticide poisonings occur each year—of which 40,000 are
fatal. The millions of workers who survive may be condemned to a lifetime of
neurological damage because of their exposure to common organophosphates. And
scarce medical care means illness is rarely treated, let alone recorded.
Supporters of the Safe Use philosophy argue that many poisonings could be
avoided by training people to take simple precautions such as following
instructions, wearing gloves and masks, and not reusing containers.
Unfortunately, the social infrastructure in much of the developing world is
so fragmented that people rarely follow these simple guidelines, say critics.
Nick van der Graff, chief of the plant protection service of the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organization lists the limitations of Safe Use. The programme
doesn’t advocate using less pesticide, or a selection of chemicals that are less
toxic—or whether pesticides need to be used at all. But it’s unreasonable
to expect an industry that exists to sell chemicals to restrict their use, he
says. And at the core of the problem, some argue, is the industry’s failure to
remove from the market, or as least guarantee the safer use of, a handful of
chemicals that cause the vast majority of serious poisonings.
The Safe Use pilot project in Guatemala has had the closest independent
scrutiny. Peter Hurst, health and safety coordinator for the International Union
of Food and Agricultural Workers (IUF) in Geneva, prepared an extensive report
on the scheme last year. A paper in World Development last
month by two sociologists from Colorado State University added fuel to the
debate.
Superficially, the picture is encouraging. The Guatemalan Safe Use programme
was launched in 1991, and from 1987 to 1997 the Guatemalan Social Security
Institute recorded a 90 per cent drop in pesticide poisonings. A report in the
newspaper Prensa Libre in April 1998, for instance, makes close links
between the two.
But Colorado State researchers Doug Murray and Pete Taylor argue there are
more likely reasons for the drop in reported poisonings: the collapse of the
cotton industry and massive underreporting of poisonings. “I do not believe that
Safe Use training has led to a significant drop in pesticide poisonings on a
large scale,” says Murray.
Hurst is also sceptical. “The impact has been impossible to evaluate because
there has been no external verification, but they haven’t targeted the right
groups,” he says. In his report, he points out that most of the training has
been aimed at farmers who buy the products rather than the agricultural workers
who apply them. “This leaves industry vulnerable to a charge that the Safe Use
programme is principally a marketing strategy,” he says.
Anarco Garcia, head of Safe Use in Guatemala, told żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ:
“We have never claimed that this drop in intoxications is the exclusive
consequence of our activities. However, Safe Use training activities
have played an important role.”
All sides agree that the official Guatemalan statistics do not reflect
reality. While the reports show a drop from 1453 acute poisonings in 1987 to 121
in 1997, independent estimates place the true figure at between 10,000 and
30,000 a year.
There are several reason for this massive underreporting, including the
36-year Guatemalan civil war, which ended in 1996. The illness reporting system
was completely abandoned for two years in the mid-1990s in Escuintla, the area
that traditionally has the country’s highest rate of poisonings. There has also
been a steady decline in the number of healthcare workers recording poisonings
in rural areas.
Because many of the worst incidents were among cotton workers, the collapse
of the Latin American cotton industry is also responsible for a real drop in
poisonings. “Cotton production has almost disappeared,” says Murray. “There are
now other crops that have expanded, but they haven’t reached the scale that
cotton did.”
Garcia admits they only have anectodal evidence to show that the Safe Use
programme is working. And Barbara Dinham of the campaign group Pesticides Action
Network also argues that there could be a conflict of interest between the
industry’s drive to sell its products and the need to reduce farmers’ dependence
on chemicals.
Real impact
Industry representatives deny this, however. In 1998, the chief executive
officers from the major crop protection companies signed a declaration
supporting integrated pest management (IPM) as a cornerstone of sustainable
agriculture. IPM does not exclude pesticides, but instead advocates a complex
set of other measures to keep chemicals to a minimum. But some observers
suggest, however, that the industry’s interpretation of IPM puts undue emphasis
on chemical solutions.
Last week, senior officials from the UN Environment Agency and the FAO added
pesticides ethylene dioxide and ethylene chloride to the list of worst offenders
under the Rotterdam Convention on harmful chemicals and pesticides. When the
convention is finally ratified it will be illegal to export the two chemicals
without express permission from the recipient country. But van der Graff, a key
player in the move to get the convention ratified, admits the process is a slow
one.
Murray and Taylor say only a fresh approach that combines both speedier
action by governments and voluntary initiatives from industry can make any real
impact on poisoning rates.
The first step would be to withdraw the most toxic pesticides. “In most
countries, no more than three or four pesticides account for the majority of the
acute poisonings. There is historical evidence to suggest that when these
products have been eliminated, a profound impact on pesticide poisonings has
occurred,” says Murray.
The next step would be to substitute safer products. “There are viable
alternatives, albeit somewhat more expensive,” says Murray. He argues that
greater emphasis on IPM and pesticide reduction would tackle the high price of
alternatives. And industry and government could make more effort to subsidise
safer alternatives.
On their own, the governments of most developing countries don’t have the
resources to provide an effective answer to the problem. Murray acknowledges
that any solution will rely heavily on cooperation from the pesticide producers.
“It should be apparent that the pesticide problem cannot be solved without the
active participation of the pesticide industry,” he says. And that seems
unlikely to happen any time soon.
