Growing urgency to strengthen SA regulations on harmful pesticides

On 22 March, various organisations joined the South African People's Tribunal on Agrotoxins to advocate for the removal of pesticides harmful to human health in agriculture, citing outdated laws. (Photo: schmidtlaw.com / Wikipedia)

By Adèle Sulcas

21 Nov 2024

The seemingly unstoppable spate of tragic deaths of children in Soweto, Alexandra and other townships after exposure to terbufos, one of many pesticides banned in the European Union but permitted in South Africa, has accelerated a sense of urgency to strengthen national regulations on dangerous – sometimes fatal – chemicals. This has now shone a spotlight on South Africa’s seeming inability to create or enforce health and safety regulations that put public health first.

Long before the recent tragedies caused by the pesticide terbufos hit the headlines in recent weeks, the toxicity to humans of hundreds of chemicals used in South African agriculture has been a widely known but hidden problem.

Not until the horrific deaths of Monica Sebetwana, Ida Maama, Isago Mabote, Njabulo Msimanga, Katlego Olifant, and Karabo Rampou in Naledi, Soweto, reported in Daily Maverick on 28 October 2024 – and since then yet another 10-year-old girl dying from “strange”-tasting snacks, 23 pre-schoolers in Ekhurhuleni being hospitalised, and on 21 November, as eNCA reported, a five year-old child died allegedly from spaza-bought snacks – has this frequently fatal problem been fully discussed in the public domain.

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The African Centre for Biodiversity said in a press statement on 31 October 2024 that UnPoison, a multi-sector advocacy network of organisations and experts focused on banning “highly hazardous pesticides” (HHPs), reports that right now, there are 184 registered HHPs in South Africa legally used under different brand names.

UnPoison welcomed the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development’s phase-out of 28 HHPs in June 2024, but noted that there are still 116 pesticides in the class of pesticides that the Government Gazette proclaimed would be phased out by June 2024.

“Why have 88 pesticides in this class been exempt from the ban?” UnPoison asked. In addition, pesticides that are “acutely toxic in Class 1A and 1B of the WHO classifications, including terbufos”, have only had their use “restricted”, not banned.

The use of terbufos, and the tragic deaths and illnesses that have resulted from it (toxicology tests have confirmed this) illustrates a global, colonially minded “double standard”, the African Centre for Biodiversity said (quoting “campaigners”).

Terbufos has been banned in the European Union since 2009, but continues to be manufactured in and exported from Europe, to markets that lack as stringent a set of regulations protecting human and environmental health, such as South Africa. (The same applies to the rampant exploitation of developing-country markets for ultra-processed foods and drinks whose market share in their original developed-country markets is declining, leading the growth-seeking transnational corporations that produce them to specifically target and heavily market their unhealthy products in territories with weaker laws on nutrition and food labelling.)

‘Legalised poisoning of agricultural workers’

This is not new news: More than a year ago, a special mission to South Africa by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, Marcos Orellana, found “several environmental discrepancies that showed a continuing legacy of pre-1994 environmental racism”, Daily Maverick reported in August 2023.

Members of the Women On Farms Project marched in Worcester on 5 May 2022 demanding an urgent ban on 67 pesticides, due to severe damage to their health as a result of ongoing and often unprotected exposure to the herbicides they apply to crops. (Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks)

Among these was “the impact of the continued use of hazardous pesticides on people’s health, the environment and the crops being sprayed”. Orellana said at a press briefing at the time that “he had visited women farmers in the Western Cape who had expressed health concerns and seen the effects of new hazardous pesticides being used in the country.” Just two weeks ago, Ruchi Tripati, the Director for Food and Climate at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, told a webinar audience of her meeting with women apple pickers in South Africa who were forced to work without protective clothing while pesticides were being sprayed on crops.

These transgressions are permitted by astonishingly outdated laws such as the Fertilisers, Farm Seeds, Seeds and Remedies Act (Number 36 of 1947) and the Hazardous Substance Act (Number 15 of 1973), which Orellana called “outdated, fragmented and allows the import of hazardous pesticides that are banned in their country of origin. This results in the legalised poisoning of agricultural workers in the fields and neighbouring communities.”

The Western Cape farm workers also “expressed concern about hazardous pesticides used in agriculture […] also being sold illegally to tackle rat and cockroach problems”.

This is one possible use of terbufos that has led to children dying from eating snacks sold by spaza shops that serve communities where municipal neglect of rubbish collection has led to shopowners’ uncontrolled use of lethal pesticides to keep vermin away from their goods and stores, without environmental safety officers’ monitoring their use to ensure it is in line with manufacturers’ specifications (for example, not for domestic use).

Special Rapporteur Orellana described reported deaths from terbufos (in 2022) and “other illegal ‘street pesticides’ in South Africa happen[ing] as a result of ‘regulatory gaps and enforcement shortcomings’ along with dire sanitation conditions in low-resource areas, leading to the use of pest remedies that are toxic and not appropriate for domestic use.”

What has glyphosate got to do with any of this?

Glyphosate, a herbicide rather than a pesticide (it kills weeds and plants rather than rodents and insects), is another organophosphate compound (like terbufos) produced by a transnational agribusiness (formerly Monsanto, now owned by Bayer) under the trade name RoundUp, that has been controversial in the European Union and some other countries, due to suspected carcinogenic risks – yet it remains the most widely used herbicide globally, including in South Africa, since its approval for use in the EU was extended in 2017, despite more than a million EU citizens calling for it to be banned.

While herbicides, which kill weeds and other plants, are potentially less lethal to humans than pesticides like terbufos (the World Health Organization classifies terbufos as a “class 1A compound”, the most toxic category for any pesticide) there are many in the “organophosphate” category that are widely considered dangerous for human health, and are – like terbufos and the 88 HHPs – banned or restricted in the European Union, but still not in South Africa.

How is glyphosate used?

Hundreds of thousands of farmworkers countrywide, working in wheat, maize, soy, sugar, grape farming, as well as in timber and horticulture, are routinely heavily exposed to these chemicals through their work. In addition, glyphosate residues are in processed food products (packaged sliced bread and mielie meal, to name just two staple foods in South Africa) with absolutely no regard for their possible impact on human health.

Glyphosate-based herbicides are manufactured by at least 91 producers in 20 countries and have been registered in more than 130 countries since 2010. It is effective against more than 100 annual broadleaf weed and grass species and more than 60 perennial weed species, the IARC, the World Health Organization’s specialised cancer agency, says. Used in lower doses than to kill weeds or other groundcover, glyphosate is also a plant-growth regulator.

In 2012, a University of Pretoria professor published a study showing that glyphosate is marketed under more than 20 trade names in South Africa, is extensively used in the timber, horticulture, sugar and viticulture industries, but that the main users of glyphosate in South Africa are maize, wheat and soybean farmers. In 2012, these staple-crop farmers used 65% of all glyphosate sold in SA.

What makes it an issue

Outside of South Africa, glyphosate has been in the legal spotlight since 2018 (the same year in which, unfortunately for Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Bayer bought Monsanto), with so far around 50,000 court cases suing Bayer for damages as a result of carcinogenic effects – the plaintiffs claim – on people regularly exposed to the herbicide RoundUp, the trade name for Monsanto’s world-dominating herbicides designed for use with Monsanto’s own crop seeds, genetically modified to be resistant to RoundUp (so that the crop grows, but all other plants and weeds around it die).

In South Africa, there is similar cause for concern at a public health level for farmworkers and gardeners who are exposed to glyphosate-containing herbicides in large volumes (often without access to protective equipment), but also for the consumer ingesting glyphosate residues as part of our daily bread, mielie pap, fruits and vegetables.

Though the proportion of wheat grown in South Africa with glyphosate is not known, a 2014 study confirmed that glyphosate was present in 88% (seven out of eight) of white bread samples tested (the concentrations of glyphosate were not specified).

Then, a 2021 scientific study in South Africa confirmed the presence of glyphosate in maize and soy grown in South Africa, putting many South Africans in a double-bind.

“Beyond the inability to afford nutritious foods, most South Africans are also subjected to dangerous agro-chemicals and genetically modified (GM) foods, without the freedom to choose. Research on commonly consumed maize and soy products in South Africa found glyphosate residues on 67% of them,” the study reports.

What does the rest of the world (and scientists) think of glyphosate?

In March 2015, 17 experts from 11 countries met at the IARC (the International Agency for Research on Cancer,) in Lyon, France, to assess the carcinogenic risks to humans of five “organophosphate” pesticides: glyphosate, diazinon, malathion, parathion, and tetrachlorvinphos. Glyphosate was already “the most heavily used agricultural herbicide in the world,” the IARC said, and “has been detected in soil, air, surface water and groundwater, as well as in food”.

The agency’s report, in 2017, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” (Group 2a, Group 1 being “carcinogenic to humans” and Group 4 being “probably not carcinogenic to humans), saying there was “sufficient evidence” from animal studies to prove glyphosate’s cancer-causing effects, but “limited evidence” in human studies. (One major limiting factor is the ethics of performing this kind of study in humans.)

Outdated laws on pesticides in South Africa still ‘allow the import of hazardous pesticides that are banned in their country of origin’, allowing ‘the legalised poisoning of agriculture workers in the fields and neighbouring communities’, says a director at the Global Alliance for the Future of Food. (Photo: schmidtlaw.com / Wikipedia)

The European Union has had a chequered relationship with glyphosate, which continues to be a highly controversial topic, with schisms among countries’ opinions on its safety in food.

Under EU rules, in December 2023 a temporary five-year authorisation of glyphosate “‘temporary” because of EU members’ differing opinions on the IARC ruling) was due to expire. A non-renewal was expected – but instead, the European Commission was obliged to approve it by default for the remaining 10 years of the standard 15-year renewal period, because not enough of a majority among EU countries was reached either to approve it or block it.

French pro-environmental farming group Confederation Paysanne called the decision and the approval process “scandalous” (France was among a number of countries to abstain from voting) while Greenpeace said it was outraged by the decision, which was contrary to numerous opinions of scientists on glyphosate’s probable negative effects on human health and the environment.

The end result? While glyphosate remains EU-approved, it is up to individual EU countries to authorise plant-protection products containing glyphosate. Some countries or territories have already restricted or banned the use of glyphosate: The state of California in 2017 declared glyphosate as a chemical “known to the state to cause cancer”, Vietnam has banned its use entirely, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have banned glyphosate for household use, and Germany, the home of Roundup’s producers, has banned its use in public spaces and will continue to phase it out, because, the Guardian reported, it wipes out insect populations crucial for ecosystems and pollination of food crops, apart from its health risks to humans. (Mexico had said it would ban it by 2024 but the government put that on hold just days before it was due to come into effect.)

Is South Africa intending to restrict or ban the use of glyphosate?

South Africa has been one of many countries taking its lead from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a leading food technologist told Daily Maverick, which has chosen to adopt the “not carcinogenic” view, despite the IARC’s “probably carcinogenic” conclusion. The European Chemicals Agency, and the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are among other powerful transnational and national regulatory authorities worldwide that have also decided to ignore the warning.

Glyphosate’s proponents emphasise its benefits as a weed killer and a regulator of crop growth (both of which clearly have outstanding commercial benefits for its mono-cropping users), as well as its minimising the need for mechanical weeding (because it eliminates them), results in “low-tillage” farming (no need for ploughing) which in turn reduces soil erosion and carbon emissions.

Its opponents say that crop-farming using alternatives to glyphosate is not only viable but much better for the environment, and for the humans who consume those crops.

Anecdotally (ie not yet widely scientifically proven) glyphosate is also implicated in other non-fatal but still concerning health problems such as the global rise in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), but scientific research does include observations of negative impacts on the balance of gut bacteria (the gut microbiota), specifically an increase in pro-inflammatory cells, a decrease in beneficial bacteria that have a protective function on epithelial cells in the gut lining, and an increase in a marker of intestinal inflammation.

What do South African health authorities say?

Since September 2024, Daily Maverick has repeatedly asked the National Department of Health if it has considered a ban or strengthening restrictions on the use of glyphosate and any other herbicides or pesticides used in commercial food-crop farming in South Africa. We have not yet received a response.

In light of the terbufos disasters, and the largely ignored battles by farmworkers, trade unions and civil society working together to expose the deathly reality of pesticides in South Africa, there is not a minute to spare. DM

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