Beware of pesticides in food - Report

Mrs. Nkeiruka Ukpo went to Iddo market, Lagos, where she usually buys food stuff. Her regular customer did not come to the market so she bought her beans and other grains from another person.

According to her, on getting home, she decided to make a meal of beans porridge. However, as the beans started boiling, she started perceiving a faint smell of pesticide. When she finished cooking and tasted the food, she observed that there was a very faint strange taste to the food. She wondered if it was coming from the smell she perceived earlier or maybe the red oil she used was not good.

Nonetheless, she served the food to her family of five as lunch. Her four children and husband complained that the food slightly tasted strange and that they perceived a very faint smell of kerosene and sniper, a popular insecticide, from the meal of beans.

By the morning of the next day, all the family members that ate the food woke up with stomach cramps, and within minutes were rushing to the toilets to relieve themselves.

Kemi Adeleja loves roasted peanuts and she patronises Mama Idara that brings peanuts to sell to the staff of First Bank, Ikorodu. On this fateful day, all her colleagues that bought the peanuts complained that it had a slight smell of sniper. Those who dared to put some in their mouth also complained of a slight foreign taste. Those who had not opened their bottles of peanuts quickly returned them to Mama Idara and demanded for a refund. Those who had opened theirs returned them to her vowing not to patronise her again.

The next day she came to apologise explaining that the person who sold the raw groundnut to her said he applies sniper in his packing store to keep weevils and other insects away from his grains.

The above narratives are just a tip of the iceberg. These and other ugly experiences have propelled the AAPN Nigeria, to demand a stop to the importation of highly hazardous pesticides into the country.

In November last year, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control [NAFDAC] listed about 680 synthetic chemical pesticide products. More than half of these products according to the Agency include active ingredients that are not approved in the European market due to their potential chronic health effects, environmental persistence, high toxicity for fish, bees or insufficient data to uphold the principle of preventing harm.

It will be recalled that in August 2021, the EU rejected over 76% of agricultural commodities from Nigeria which were meant for export. Some of the products were rejected because of pesticide residue and some because they developed molds due to lack of adequate storage facilities.

The risk of toxic pesticides also extends to end consumers as pesticide residues have been found on farm produce exceeding the Maximum Residual Level. Pesticides also contaminate water via infiltration, surface runoff, and drift.

They accumulate in the soil and exert adverse effects on soil life – sometimes for decades.

Surveys have shown that up to 80% of the most frequently used pesticides by small-scale farmers in Nigeria are Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs). Pesticides are classified as highly hazardous if they cause serious or irreversible damage to health or the environment. They can cause cancer or genetic defects, impair fertility or harm unborn children. Women farmers are vulnerable especially to pesticides that are hormonally active or known to disrupt the endocrine system.

The frequent and high use of these toxic pesticides has also negatively impacted export opportunities, with the European Union restricting the import of Nigerian agricultural products such as dried beans due to high levels of pesticide residues considered dangerous to human health.

Despite being banned in their home jurisdictions, European companies continue to export these hazardous pesticide products to Nigeria and other African countries, creating a double standard in the pesticide trade.

A group of Nigerians through a nongovernmental organisation [NGO] Change. Org platform, geared towards creating positive change at local, national and global levels, is therefore calling on the Federal Government of Nigeria through NAFDAC, to comprehensively review the list of registered pesticide products with the view of phasing out and banning the most hazardous substances. Pesticide products with active ingredients are considered too dangerous and toxic for the European market and people, and should not be sold in the Nigerian market.

The group called on the government to raise this issue with the European Union and demand fair trade practices that prioritise the health and wellbeing of farmers and consumers in Nigeria.

It also asked the government to enforce strict regulations on the use of pesticides by farmers, provide adequate training and education on safer and sustainable agricultural practices, and support the adoption of organic farming to reduce the overall reliance on chemical pesticides.

As one of the largest importers of pesticides on the African continent, Nigeria faces mounting human and environmental health challenges due to their high use. A significant number of these pesticides are highly hazardous and already banned in regions like the European Union.

The World Health Organisation [WHO] had earlier said that pesticide registrars and regulators should put in place regulatory actions to phase out, through national policies and enforcement, the most hazardous pesticides.

WHO said, “Such actions should be carried out along with provision of advice and training about low risk pesticides or alternatives through agricultural extension programmes, education of farmers in agricultural practices based on scientific research findings and new knowledge.”