40% of pesticides on sale in Tanzania fake

It is estimated that 40 per cent of pesticides in Tanzania are fake, posing dangers to farmers and consumers. Land is also degraded. With vegetables increasingly grown in urban areas and the Kilimo Kwanza (Agriculture First) initiative promoted, the threat of contamination is high. Use of such counterfeit chemicals does not raise crop yields. Since many of the pesticides enter the market illegally, the government misses revenue.

Most of the adverse effects do not occur overnight. That information emerged during a one-day course here on illegal pesticides. Croplife Africa and Middle East organised the event, which drew participants from the Criminal Investigations Department, the Plant Health Services at the ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives, agrochemical dealers and consumers.

In his opening remarks, Croplife Tanzania chairman Harish Dhutia noted that fake, adulterated, expired or prohibited products had flooded the market. His vice-chairman Ernest Massae spoke about an Arusha farmer who sprayed a pesticide on his coffee farm and when his expectant wife passed through the farm she suddenly fell sick. She later miscarried.

A story from Zambia kept participants aghast and it was told by Croplife country coordinator Perry Ngoma. It was about an incident that occurred in 2008 when a highly successful herbicide brand became rare after it had become the most sought-after weed killer by maize producers in two regions.

Then, some people ordered it from abroad and when it arrived, farmers scrambled for it in anticipation that it would increase crop yields. But, alas! when they used it no plant, including maize, grew. That reminded Tanzanian participants about what happened in some parts of Iringa and Mbeya when fields became barren.

According to a Namibian trainer, Mr Herman Louw, the global pesticide business is worth $38 billion, with Africa accounting for $1.5 billion annually.

Mr Louw noted that counterfeiters resort to faking pesticides due to the fact that the cost of bringing a new product to the market, which includes a new active substance, was high — $250 million. Moreover, it takes seven to nine years from conducting tests to start selling a pesticide. Few companies afford the cost of research and product development.

"These murderers will never stop killing us nor will they mind polluting our farmlands. That is why we must come together to win this war. If we lose, they win,” he appealed. In the painstaking process of genuine product research and development, factors such as content formulation, composition, active ingredients, toxicity, volume of content, storage and usage instructions are considered.

Counterfeiters use shortcuts of producing pesticides by mixing anything and selling products to farmers at cheaper prices than those of genuine ones. Pesticides, sometimes called crop protection products, are mainly used by large- and small-scale farmers and gardeners to control or kill insects, fungi, grass, broadleaf weeds, mites, nematodes, snails and mites.