South Africa: Illegal pesticide trade in ‘two step’ driven by pests

ON THE streets they call it "two step" — a poison so deadly that animals that consume it manage no more than two paces before falling down dead. It is the black-market version of Bayer CropScience’s pesticide aldicarb, which was intended for use by farmers in the control of worms and aphids.

But municipalities’ failure to provide adequate waste disposal services to poor communities plagued with rodents, combined with criminal demand for a quick way to poison guard dogs, is driving a booming illegal trade in the chemical.

"People live with major pest problems," says Andrea Rother, of the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Cape Town.

"They are not aware of alternatives to poison, and aldicarb is cheap and very effective in the short term," she says.

The widespread availability of the dark grey granules — sold in little packets or straws at street markets, on trains and even at pension payout points — means accidental poisoning is common. People either handle the poison inappropriately or fail to recognise it for what it is.

"People can mistake it for spice or pepper and throw it over food," says Jan van Niekerk of the City of Johannesburg’s environmental health department. "It’s more deadly than an AK-47. An amount the size of the head of a matchstick will kill a full-grown man in 20 minutes," he says.

Aldicarb does not necessarily have to be eaten to do harm. It is readily absorbed through moist skin, and inhaling its dust can prove just as dangerous.

Many other agricultural pesticides are sold on the streets, says Dr Rother. These include Dichlorvos, methamidophos, malathion, Oxydemeton-methyl, diazinon, monocrotophos, carbofuran, brodifacoum and difethialone. Typically, these are sold in unmarked bottles, with no indication of active ingredients and scant user instructions .

About half the black-market sales of agricultural pesticides are of aldicarb, estimates Gerhard Verdoorn, who runs the Griffon Poison Information Centre. His research suggests about 1000 dogs a week are being killed with aldicarb, in townships and wealthy suburbs alike.

Bayer CropScience is the only legal supplier of aldicarb in SA, branded as Temik. The company has strict controls for every stage of its supply chain, from the manufacturing plant in the US to farms in SA, says Bayer’s regional head, Klaus Eckstein.

Every packet is bar-coded, and distributors, agents and farmers all have to undergo training and are registered on the company’s database.

Bayer has tried to make Temik safer by coating it with Bittrex, a substance so bitter that a person cannot mistake it for food, and by adding a vomit- inducing agent to reduce the harm from accidental ingestion.
The company has already stopped selling Temik in Europe, and plans to phase it out in SA by August. It expects to finalise crop trials on a new product this year, and will then register this product with the Department of Agriculture, says Dr Eckstein.

However, Temik’s withdrawal may have little effect as most of the aldicarb products found on the streets are generic versions produced in China.

Generic aldicarb is registered in Zimbabwe, which appears to be the main source of illegal imports. It also enters SA’s notoriously porous borders from Mozambique and Angola, according to Dr Verdoorn.

The problem is compounded by a lack of awareness among the police in SA , who have limited understanding of how to charge suspects in terms of the Fertilisers, Farm, Feeds, Agricultural and Stock Remedies Act of 1947, he says. The act says selling an unregistered poison is a criminal offence, and carries a maximum jail term of two years.

Despite its popularity in townships and informal settlements, aldicarb is not particularly effective at ridding a home of rats, warns Dr Ivan Bromfield, head of health for the City of Cape Town. Aldicarb is an acute poison — it kills only the rat that eats the bait .

Municipalities will only tackle rodents outside people’s homes, block-baiting neighbourhoods with slow-acting poisons such as Racumin or using carbon monoxide gas to suffocate them in their burrows.

While Dr Bromfield concedes that poor communities cannot afford private pest control services, he insists there is a lot they can do to control rodents.

"You can ensure structures don’t have gaps where rats can enter, and you can make sure you don’t leave food lying around the house. You only have rodents where there is easy access to food," he says.

Mr van Niekerk puts it more bluntly: "The problem in the townships is waste management ," he says.