By Our Correspondent
A civil society organization, Alliance for Action on Pesticides Nigeria (AAPN), has raised alarm at the level of hazardous chemical pesticides and fertilizers in distributions across the country’s farmlands and demanded a call to action.
The group at a press briefing, Thursday, in Abuja lamented the danger posed by the contamination of the soil, water, food, and human bodies through agricultural inputs that contain dangerous, highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs).
The convener, Alliance for Action on Pesticides Nigeria, Barr. Oreoluwa Adelakun, in her remarks, called for a state of emergency on Pesticides regulations while highlighting the common highly hazardous pesticides that are still in use, amongst which are Butaschlor, Dimethoate, Glyphosate, and Diuron.
”We are in a state of emergency on what we eat; what we eat should not kill us!
”Agricultural inputs aimed to boost Agricultural outputs pose a threat to livelihood with hazardous pesticides”, she said”.
Adelakun, legal and policy lead, AAPN, also lamented the risk to health, food exports, and the rates of death, suicide, and environmental problems associated with the spread of highly toxic chemicals in our food, which requires improved legislative and enforcement frameworks.
The press briefing, which had other speakers, amongst whom were Prof. Simon Irtwange, co-founder of AAPN; Mr. Victor Fabunmi, environmental toxicologist & policy advocate of SRADEV; and Joyce Brown, Agroecology food safety advocate of HOMEF (Director of Program), all advocated for a “concerted effort to save our families, save our food, save our health, and save our future.
”Our legislators and executives should distribute safe pesticides in farm input support schemes and help to improve the enforcement structure. This is a function of a right to life’, said Joyce Brown.
The group also urged the media to use their tools to report the challenges posed by the use of toxic pesticides to the ecosystem.
President of the ‘All Farmers Association of Nigeria’, Dr. Farouk Rabiu Mudi, also clamour for collaborations between farmers, the media, legislators, and regulators for a robust warning system and zero tolerance enforcement to put a stop to the spread of highly toxic chemicals in our food.
