▶️ the post PETITION!!! RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT: HOLD SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT AND CHEMICAL INDUSTRY TO ACCOUNT FOR DEATHS AND SERIOUS ILLNESSES FROM TOXIC PESTICIDES ON THE FARM AND IN FOOD appeared first on groundWork.
Vuka.news SUMMARY – SIGN PETITON here by 4 December 2024:
South Africa is dealing with a serious problem involving food poisoning and toxic pesticides, which has led to children tragically dying. Critics believe the government’s response blames the wrong people and fails to address the real issues. Here are the main points:
- Tragic Deaths: Children have died due to food contaminated with deadly pesticides like Terbufos, which is banned in other countries but still used in South Africa.
- Government Response: A national disaster has been declared, and spaza shops must re-register. Activists argue this unfairly shifts blame onto shop owners rather than addressing the root causes.
- Outdated Laws: Pesticide regulations in South Africa are 75 years old and fail to protect public health effectively.
- Industry Influence: Powerful chemical companies, like CropLife, are accused of blocking reforms and prioritizing profits over safety.
- Activists’ Demands:
- Ban highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) like Terbufos immediately.
- Create stricter regulations and stop allowing the pesticide industry to self-regulate.
- Provide better healthcare for victims of poisoning and support for their families.
- Transition to safer, chemical-free methods of farming.
- Call for Action: Experts and activists are urging the government to take responsibility, fix weak regulations, and protect people’s health and the environment.
PETITION
RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT: HOLD SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT AND CHEMICAL INDUSTRY TO ACCOUNT FOR DEATHS AND SERIOUS ILLNESSES FROM TOXIC PESTICIDES ON THE FARM AND IN FOOD
Ban Terbufos with immediate effect, institute mechanisms for banning all highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) within three months
Please click here to sign on.
Please spread the word by sharing this petition with others: https://t2m.io/PesticideTribunal_BanTerbufos
Signatures open until 4 December 2024.
22 November 2024
To:
The President of the Republic of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa
Portfolio Committees on Agriculture and Rural Development; Labour and Employment; Health; and Environment, Forestry and Fisheries
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries John Steenhuisen
Minister of Labour and Employment Nomakhosazana Meth
Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi
Minister of Environment Dion George
Minister of Land Reform and Rural Development Mzwanele Nyhontso
South Africans have been alarmed to learn of multiple instances of children rushed to emergency due to foodborne illnesses and poisoning, some with tragically fatal consequences. As a result, President Ramaphosa has declared a national disaster and decreed that all spaza shops must re-register within 21 days.
We note that these solutions do nothing to deal with the source of the issue: the unacceptable presence of HHPs on the South African market, and the failure of the relevant Departments to carry out their duty to effectively regulate agrotoxins.
We are alarmed that the chemical industry, CropLife, immediately created a narrative in the media to place the blame on spaza shops, the lifeblood of most communities in South Africa (SA), fanning xenophobic flames. All in a bid to deflect attention from their responsibility for these historic and continuing tragedies. We are alarmed that our government has supported them in this endeavour. This injustice must be remedied.
PETITION DEMANDS
We call on the government to cease conflating incidences of food poisoning by highly toxic pesticides and food contaminated by food-borne illness. This has led to the inappropriate solution of blaming spazas for the government’s failure.
We urge the government to release in an open and transparent matter, the exact cause of each food-related emergency, as was done with the Naledi tragedy.
We call on the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) to ban Terbufos with immediate effect and to overhaul the entire pesticide registration system within 12 months.
We call on the government to ban aerial spraying of pesticides, as recommended by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, Dr Marcus Orellana, following his visit to SA in 2023.
We call on the government to establish an open and transparent process towards the banning of the category of Highly Hazardous Pesticides within the next three months.
We urge the government to ensure adequate funding for government Poison Information Centres.
We call on the government to establish an independent inquiry into the structural causes and the role of industry in the cases of pesticide poisoning.
We call on the government to implement its 2010 pesticide policy and to integrate this with a food security plan that reduces reliance on chemicals for pest control.
We urge the government to establish a Compensation Fund within one year that will compensate pesticide poisoning victims fairly and equitably.
We urge the Department of Health to ensure access to quality health care for survivors of pesticide poisoning – particularly children – whose long-term development and health may be at risk from the poisoning.
“Everyone wants to assign blame for this tragedy but spaza shop owners are not the culprits. If we don’t tackle the upstream causes, we will almost certainly see more poisonings in the future.”
Profs Leslie London & Andrea Rother, UCT School of Public Health
THE LONG READ
Tragic deaths in Naledi highlight the scourge of street pesticides
In October 2024, South Africa was shocked, outraged, and dismayed to learn that six children had died after eating snacks bought at a spaza shop in Naledi, Soweto. The families of these young children will never be the same. The Department of Health soon confirmed that the deaths were caused by an HHP called Terbufos.
Soon, the media machine was picking up scores of other instances of hospital emergencies related to children eating from school feeding schemes and spaza shops. The pesticide industry, under the auspices of CropLife, aided by the South African government, used this tragedy to conflate the incidences of food contaminated by deadly toxins with food-borne illnesses caused by expired or otherwise spoiled or rotten foods. These are separate occurrences that need discreet and systemic solutions.
In the panic to identify a culprit, attention has focused on spaza shop owners and they have been scapegoated for a much bigger and complex problem. This has firstly allowed industry to wash their hands of any responsibility for failing to ensure product stewardship of their toxic chemicals through the lifetime, as required by the National Environmental Management Act. Secondly, it has opened the door to the scourge of xenophobia, which must be stopped immediately.
We, the undersigned, know who the real culprits are in this avoidable tragedy, and we demand radical and expedited changes in the approval, use, and regulation of agricultural poisons
Terbufos – HHP that should have been banned ages ago
Terbufos is an HHP from the organophosphate family. It was listed as a “restricted agricultural remedy” in 2023, requiring specific labelling. Terbufos has been banned in the European Union since 2009 and there is no reason for it not to have been banned here – European bodies and African bodies react to poisons just the same. Further and given that it is banned elsewhere, there are alternatives available.
The South African government was warned about deaths from pesticides freely available on the street, in 2023 and 2024, by the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, Dr Marcus Orellana. He even mentioned Terbufos by name in his report on toxins in SA released in July 2024. He found that deaths are caused by lapses in regulations and enforcement. He also warned of the outsize power the chemical industry has in regulatory decision-making. Although the state responded to his report, they did not acknowledge his findings in this regard or show any urgency to remedy the regulatory problems he identified.
Scientists have persistently raised the alarm over decades about the deaths and impacts of street pesticides, as well as pesticides used in agricultural settings. Research at a large Cape Town mortuary, published in 2023, showed that Terbufos was confirmed as the causative agent for more than 50% of child deaths in a 10-year review of child fatalities in which pesticide poisoning was suspected.
The DALRRD is primarily responsible for failing to modernise its regulatory control over toxic pesticides and this failure is the underlying reason for these deaths. The DALRRD issued two discussion papers on pesticide legislation that indicates knowledge that the current legislation – which is 75 years old – must be replaced to be fit for purpose. However, nothing has been done to advance this legislative reform and, under this antiquated Act 36 of 1947, six preventable child deaths have occurred in a terrible tragedy. The Departments of Labour and Employment, Health, and Environment must also take responsibility where they have failed to act. These incidents of death are not new, not surprising.
Our government has been warned many times by experts and activists but has chosen to prioritise the corporate profits of the chemical industry over Constitutional rights to our health and the right to a clean and healthy environment. We reject their attempt to scapegoat spaza shops and foreigners on this matter.
Terbufos and thousands of other pesticides poison farm workers daily
Terbufos is registered for agricultural, not domestic use. It is one of over 9,000 toxic chemical compounds registered for use in SA, in varying categories of toxicity, used extensively on wine, maize and citrus farms. Farm workers are exposed to these daily. While men often do the spraying, women farmworkers are also vulnerable to pesticide exposure, which occurs in multiple ways, including when pesticides are applied while they are working without proper protective clothing and when they are forced to re-enter vineyards soon after pesticides have been sprayed.
Farm bosses often ignore regulations regarding training, access to information, protective gear, wash stations, etc., and no one is monitoring them. Local clinics lack knowledge of pesticides in use in their vicinity, how to diagnose and treat poisoning, or their obligations to report pesticide poisoning. Farm workers live under extremely vulnerable and precarious working conditions where they have little to no bargaining power. They receive the barest minimum wage, with little access to health services. No amount of traceability and labelling will make a substance designed to kill safe, and there is no ideal real-life situation where these toxins can be deployed safely.
Farm workers and their children, farm dwellers, and people living adjacent to farms are also exposed to these toxins regularly. Spraying season has just begun (November) and those living on and adjacent to farms are experiencing the familiar symptoms of exposure to cocktails of toxic pesticides drifting in the air – asthma, sinus, streaming eyes, mood swings, headaches – and many will know the long-term impacts in their bodies in years to come.
This toxic mode of food production is not inevitable. We reject the well-worn narrative that we cannot achieve food security if we do not spray our food with numerous cocktails of poisons from seed to production to storage. Minister Steenhuisen recently declared in the media that these toxins are beneficial to society. How long will we allow the chemical industry to sell us this bizarre notion? What will it take for our government to take a serious look into alternative, safe methods of food production if the death of children from Terbufos poisoning has been an opportunity to deflect blame and responsibility?
The fox is in charge of the hen house – CropLife regulates itself
The multi-billion-dollar industry that produces these highly hazardous chemicals has a hold over the South African government, as noted by the UN Special Rapporteur in his July 2024 report. This industry, spearheaded by CropLife, has hindered every attempt to reduce the use of agrotoxins and to properly regulate and ban HHPs. Government is complicit, as they have enabled the self-regulation by industry to continue and consistently make decisions in favour of industry over the people and environmental health and safety. Here are some examples of industry audacity and impunity:
In 2006, the draft pesticide management policy contained strong safety measures, but the industry successfully lobbied to remove these and restrict the scope of the policy.
Industry stopped plans to replace the Committee to Protect Man against Poisons with a new department structure because the new members included scientists who were too critical of industry interests.
In 2020, it was revealed that CropLife members pay ‘independent consultants’ embedded in the office of the Registrar to do their bidding.
CropLife lobbied to set up a committee of their members to act as an ‘independent certification body’ when the government introduced new regulations governing regulatory trials for pesticides.
In 2021, the Department of Environment withdrew regulations to implement SA’s obligations under the Rotterdam Convention, arguing that time for adjustment was needed –17 years after SA ratified the Convention. Terbufos was one of the agents imported by UPL at its Cornubia store that went up in flames in 2021, and would have been notifiable under these regulations.
The South African registrar of hazardous substances promised to phase out 116 HHPs by June 2024 (Terbufos is one of these). Ultimately, only 28 were identified for phasing out, but not Terbufos, and to add insult to injury, regulations were even passed to allow industry to apply for exemptions to continue to use these chemicals under certain circumstances.
There is no publicly available database of pesticide registrations. This responsibility was handed by the DALRRD to industry and access to information on what pesticides are registered for use in SA is under the control of CropLife.
We the undersigned demand an end to the self-regulation of this industry as being a clear case of gross conflict of interests. We demand that our government takes responsibility for pesticide poisoning on the farm and in the street, and holds Croplife and its members to account. The government is under a Constitutional duty to take up the regulatory reins to ensure our Constitutional rights to health and the right to a healthy environment.
Issued by the South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins (SAPToA).
SAPToA is a coalition of vulnerable and affected peoples, civil society organisations, trade unions, academics and individuals working together to expose the harmful reality of pesticides in South Africa and support those who work with agricultural toxins in their daily lives.
Our growing affiliates currently include:
Commercial Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU); Women on Farms Project (WFP); African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB); groundWork, Friends of the Earth SA, South Durban Community Environmental Alliance; affected peoples of the Blackburn Community; Surplus People Project (SPP); Ubuntu Rural Women and Youth Movement; Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE); UCT School of Public Health.
You can sign the petition here.
Spread the word by sharing this link: https://t2m.io/PesticideTribunal_BanTerbufos
Signatures open until 4 December 2024.
Further reading
Visit to South Africa – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, Marcos Orellana. July 2024. https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5752add1-visit-south-africa-report-special-rapporteur-implications
Comments by the State: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes on his visit to South Africa. September 2024. https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g24/149/14/pdf/g2414914.pdf
Pesticide Action Network list of HHPs. https://pan-international.org/wp-content/uploads/PAN_HHP_List.pdf
Terbufos information sheet: https://echa.europa.eu/substance-information/-/substanceinfo/100.032.679
End notes
HHPs are pesticides that have been identified as posing a high and unacceptable risk to human health or the environment. They are typically characterised by:
acute toxicity,
potential to cause chronic health effects, or
persistence in the environment, and
commonly being highly restricted or banned in other regions for this reason.
192 HHPs are registered and legally in use in SA and of these over a third (57/192) are banned in the European Union (EU) because of unacceptable human health and environmental risks, and 36 belong to the most hazardous class known as the World Health Organisation (WHO) Group 1a and 1b. These are substances known to have carcinogenic potential for humans, based on human health evidence and, in acute poisonings, can cause death. Examples of HHPs in this class still legally registered and used in South Africa include:
Carbofuran: This pesticide used on many crops is toxic by inhalation or dermal absorption. Farmers and farmworkers are most at risk as it is an endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC) and reproductive and developmental toxicant. It is also highly toxic to aquatic organisms.
Mevinphos: Exposure can result in long-term neurological effects. It is also a groundwater contaminant and farmworkers and farmers are at great exposure risk as it is also an EDC.
Terbufos: This agricultural insecticide with neurotoxic effects is often sold as a street pesticide in SA – a pesticide that is decanted and sold for use in informal markets without the correct label or warnings. Children and adolescents are the most vulnerable group and high incidences of poisonings are recorded every year.
