Stakeholders in the agricultural sector have continued to canvas for the adoption of organic agriculture as a means of overcoming the negative impacts of chemicals on Nigeria’s food system.
Manager, Sustainable Nigeria Programme for Heinrich-Boll Stiftung, and National Coordinator, Alliance for Action on Pesticide in Nigeria (AAPN), Mr Donald Ikenna, while commenting on the recent The Guardia report where it was discovered that Pregnant women in a key US farm state are showing increasing amounts of a toxic weed killer in their urine, a rise that comes alongside increasing use of the chemicals in agriculture, raises serious concern on what would be the case of Nigeria.
According to him, statistics show that over 80% of farmers and consumers in Nigeria do not know the chemical they apply on their farms, nor do they know the health and environmental risks of these chemicals.
The Study led by the Indiana University school of medicine, as reported in The Guardian, showed that 70 per cent of pregnant women tested in Indiana between 2020 and 2022 had a herbicide called dicamba in their urine, up from 28 per cent from a similar analysis for the period 2010-12. The earlier study included women in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio.
Notably, the study also found that a larger percentage of women showing the presence of dicamba in their bodies also had a large percentage of the weed-killing chemical in their bodies.
Both studies found that 100 per cent of the women tested had 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, better known as 2,4-D, in their urine; the more recent study showed detectable, but not significant, increases in concentration levels.
Ikenna states further that over 50 per cent of registered pesticides in Nigeria are Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs), meaning they caused severe health problems like cancer, disrupt homones, affect reproductive and sexual organs, affect the brains, and compromise the immune system.
While over 40 per cent of chemicals registered and used in Nigeria, are already banned in Europe, Asia and other Western countries, hence, our food export rejections aside other safety factors.
He said there was a false narrative that organic agriculture is expensive and cannot feed us all. “This is a big lie because, first the government and politicians heavily subsidize and buy these toxic chemicals from Agro-companies who are heavy political lobbyists, and government contractors ask CBN and Farmers what agro-chemical they get in the Anchor Borrow Program.
“Also ask your Ministers of Agriculture at Federal and State levels what chemicals they buy with the big budgets. Lastly, ask the Farmers Association which chemicals they ask the government to supply their members?” he lamented.
Ikenna said cancer cases are on a fast rise in Nigeria as 120,000 reported new cases aside the unreported one show that over 75000 die amounting to over 60% while seven of the 13 most commonly used chemical pesticide brands in Nigeria have their major ingredients/active ingredients that cause cancer.
It could also be noted that gestational exposure to glyphosate, the key ingredient in the well-known Roundup herbicide, is associated with reduced fetal growth and other fetal problems. Glyphosate separately has been linked to cancer and other health problems.
