Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 3: The politics of wasteAccording to Pesticide News:The biggest stocks of pesticides are invariably found where major donoroperations have taken place, large scale cash crop production exists orhas existed in the past, and centralised agricultural input supply systemsoperate or operated in the past. Cotton, for example, has consistently beena major user of pesticides and national cotton production and marketingorganisations have commonly been involved in buying and distributingpesticides. Low cotton prices encouraged farmers in many countries to growother crops leaving in many cases massive stocks of pesticides and pesticidetreated seed unused. To a smaller extent a similar pattern was repeated withcoffee production. 43Changes in policy as well as markets have contributed to the problem. In countrieswhere the state promoted chemical agriculture, whole warehouses full of obsoletepesticides were left to rot when structural adjustment programmes forced cuts inthe support to small farmers. Stockpiles were also created when the rules regulatingpesticides in sending countries were changed. The results on the ground are atrocious,as the experience in Vikuge, Tanzania, shows. 44Vikuge became the victim of a toxic donation in 1986, when a private company inGreece donated partly expired pesticides to the government of Tanzania – via theGreek government. These pesticides had been made obsolete in Europe by tighterregulation. A technical examination suggested that the ‘donation’ contained notonly pesticides, but also waste from pesticide production. The pesticides were storedin an open shed at Vikuge State Farm. They were never used – partly because localmanagers did not understand the Greek labelling – and the shed later collapsed.In 1995 the pesticides were partially burned by a bush fire. In 1996 the shed wasrebuilt and the pesticides collected and repacked with donor support from theSwedish International Development Agency (SIDA). Development workers havereported that no vegetation grows around the shed, there is a strong smell and somepesticides are still scattered in the vicinity. There is an obvious risk that villagersare exposed to the pesticides through contamination of their wells as well as thepollution of air.43 Pesticides News, September 200544 Based on Obsolete pesticides threaten Vikuge village, Tanzania, by Michael Kishimba, Henry Kylin, MatabolaMihale and Sara Elfvendahl. Pesticide News, September 2005.- 62 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation