Kenya: Association blames poor crop production on counterfeit pesticides

An agricultural association has blamed this years poor crop yield on use of counterfeit pest control products by unsuspecting farmers.

The Agro-Chemical Association of Kenya puts the rise of trade on counterfeit pest trade at between 15 to 20 per cent.

Association Chairman Argwings Otieno said the trend is worrying the agricultural sector following revelations that the far-East region is the source of the products.

The association says the last one-year has seen an influx of counterfeit products in the country’s agricultural sector, which poses a threat to Kenya’s food security.

"We thought this belonged to other sectors like the motor industry and consumer goods. Now trading on counterfeits has extended to agricultural products. The result can be seen in the poor crop harvest in 2010r," he said.

Mr Otieno was speaking during the association’s 2010 annual meeting, attended by regional agricultural stakeholders in Nairobi.

It estimated that farmers in Rift Valley and Central Kenya got below pa harvest due to use of fake chemicals in their farms.

Each year the local agrochemical market sells close to 4,900 metric tonnes of chemicals valued at Sh3.3 billion. There are no statistics yet to show how much of the fake chemicals eat into the market.

The Agro-Chemical Association says the range of goods that are subject to infringement is now a major threat to the environment.

"There is need to develop a clean supply chain of pest products through accreditation to ensure the safe handling of pesticides and reduce the risks that they pose to humans, livestock and the environment," said Dr Wilson Songa, the Agricultural Secretary, who represented the Government.

Dr Songa said there was an ongoing Government-safeguarding project to map out, identify and eventually destroy obsolete chemicals.

Led by the Plant Science Industry through CropLife Kenya and the Ministry of Agriculture, the project called CleanFarms Kenya has been set up with the objective of finding and removing potentially hazardous obsolete and unwanted pesticides from all locations in Kenya.

The clean up of one tonne of obsolete pesticide waste costs around Sh280,000. Most developing countries, including Kenya, do not have the facilities for safe hazardous waste disposal.

"These stocks often deteriorate to contaminate the environment and put people at risk. The worst affected are poor rural communities that may not even be aware of the toxic nature of the chemicals in their environment," said Otieno.

The project this year opened its first obsolete waste collection centres at Kenya Agricultural Research Institute research station in Thika and Eldoret to allow farmers and input dealers to bring their obsolete and unwanted pesticides and empty containers for safeguarding.