Stop Wildlife Poisoning

Category: carbofuran | Date: Sep 22 2008 | By: Martin

I am looking at a 200g pesticide pack just 15cm away on my desk. It is Furadan 5G.

In a workshop on pesticide externalities that I attended hardly a fortnight ago, it turned out that Furadan 5G is not ranked amongst the top ten most used pesticide in a sampled part of central Kenya. Central Kenya is an intensive crop production zone favoured by optmum climatic conditions. Due to small land sizes together with the entrepreneural nature of the native community who grow food crop for sell in the nearby country’s capital city Nairobi, pesticide use is high for maximum yields. It is amazing however that Furadan, an acclaimed effective nematicide is not ranked amongst the most used pesticides in the area.

In my first Furadan survey, I found 88% Furadan availability in the areas that I surveyed. These were mostly around Nairobi. This area is characterized by both pastoralist and crop farming activities areas, though these are markedly distinct. In summary I found out that the crop farmers knew little about Furadan compared to pastoralists. Now that this product is not in high use especially in the agricultural stronghold in the neighbourhood of Nairobi gives an option of its use in the not so far pastoralist neighbourhood. I am afraid this just a confirms my survey’s inference and the way I had wished I was wrong.

It is worrying to think that the sole purpose for which Furadan is meant for as an insect/nematode pesticide is becoming obsolete if it has not already. A killer’s ready preparation for poisoning?

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Tags: crop farming, furadan, pastoralist, pesticide

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Category: Organophosphates, Pesticides | Date: Jul 18 2008 | By: Martin

Hi. I recently got the opportunity to get an introductory overview of the situation of pesticides in Kenya using the case example of Nairobi City. Communicating to a specialist and key figure at Consumer Watch Kenya, a leading organization in Kenya that fights for better quality and safety of products and services for Kenyan consumers, I got to confirm our fear as conservationists that all is amiss as far as pesticide use, distribution and legislation is concerned. The specialist gave a sorry impression, based on the findings of their organization and agreed with me that indeed it was time, to use her words, ‘we joined dots(medicine, wildlife, agriculture, and others)’ to confront and deal with the situation.

Basically, the scenario witnessed is unauthorized pesticides, including those banned or severely restricted in developed countries being found in Kenya. In addition, these together with others are found to occur at high levels that deem them toxic to man. This information is in a report by Kenya Organic Agricultural Network and can be found on Consumer Watch Kenya’s website at www.consumerwatchkenya.org .Disturbing issues from the report include:

• There are only 16 banned/restricted pesticides in Kenya currently, despite the fact that Kenya is a signatory to major conventions and protocols that deal with Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) e.g. Rotterdam Convention, Montreal Protocol, Stockholm Convention among others.

• Of the 85,000 synthetic chemicals available worldwide, many are carcinogenic and damage the brain, the nervous and reproductive system. Many of these may leave residues in or on crops and on environment with potential exposure to human beings (and if I may add to wildlife and therefore the entire biodiversity is at risk).

• Following random selection of purchase sites for vegetables in Nairobi city, the test results on the purchased vegetables were shocking in 10 out of the 15 pesticides detected, exhibiting higher levels than those reflected by EU as healthy for the consumption. These include 2 banned organophosphates (Parathion and methyl parathion).

It follows without doubt that man and animal as well as environment at large face heavy toxicity confrontation from pesticides. It is only cooperative responsibility that can sort us out of this mess.

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Tags: conservationists, Consumer Watch Kenya, persistent organic pollutants, pesticide

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