Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Jul 21 2009 | By: Martin Odino

Furadan not only poisons the animals it is directly used to poison but also gets into the water, soil and plants.

Bunyala is an amazing, almost perfect plain ’s land. It was checking out this panoramic view that it occcured to me that on the flat surface, just like the water flows to almost submerge the entire Bunyala area, so does whatever that is dissolved in the water.

A flat expanse: Bunyala

The farmers who tend the paddy have been using Furadan for at least 3 decades in the production of the crop. The soil is acidic, black cotton soil, the conditions of which favor slower degradation of carbofuran therefore the pesticide lasts longer in the prevalent conditions in Bunyala.

When the nearby river Nzoia bursts its banks, the flood waters find their way especially by way of the irrigation canals to the rice scheme, pick up whatever is in the paddy fields of the Furadan and flows to the surrounding plains. With reduced momentum, some of the water seeps into the soil. With receding floods, I bet the grass takes up some of the deposited Furadan if it is not degraded.

At flooding, irrigation canals overflow, their spillage getting as far as and beyond the surrounding homesteads

Bunyala residents use bore-hole water. At flooding, the water in the bore hole rises to almost ground level the extra having come from rain water but also from flood water which is the overflow some of which is contaminated with Furadan after having gotten to the rice scheme and out of the irrigation water canals, gushing out and into the boreholes and wells eventually. It is this water that the residents of Bunyala then draw and use for domestic use.

My assistant offering a helping hand to children at a borehole. Such are the wells that get Furadan contamination at flooding.

Then there is the rice that is grown using Furadan. Its safety not up to standard especially to children at least by the merit of EPA.

Unshelld rice on a drying mat and a kid playing on it; after a few days the rice will be separated from the husk by hitting it using sticks and the young man will soon be relying on the grain for his upkeep.

Everything might just be contaminated using furadan in Bumyala: Cattle grazing in contaminated grass; people drinking, cooking and washing using contaminated water and still, people feeding on rice that may just not be safe for human consumption.

Tags: Bunyala, EPA, furadan, poison