Warning of "toxic time bomb"

Africa is facing a “toxic time bomb” from dangerous obsolete pesticides, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned on Wednesday.

Thousands of tonnes of highly poisonous chemicals are contaminating land and finding their way into the food chain, it said. “These are very dangerous chemicals,” Dr Alemayehu Wondagegneh from the FAO told IRIN in Addis Ababa. “Most of them have been banned elsewhere.”

The FAO has launched a four-day workshop in Addis Ababa, along with the African Stockpiles Programme (ASP) and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), to help raise awareness of how dangerous the chemicals are. Farmers in developing countries are often forced to rely on the obsolete chemicals because the quality of soil is so poor and the pesticides are very cheap.

“People in developing countries are unaware of the inherent dangers of these pesticides,” added Dr Alemayehu, the chief technical advisor for the Prevention and Disposal of Obsolete Pesticides. “If they are not disposed of properly they get in the groundwater, lakes and rivers. Then they are eaten by fish and gradually find their way into the food chain."

“If they are not cleaned up and these chemicals disposed of properly it is fair to say people will die as a result.” Dr Alemayehu predicted that in the next five years the dangers
would become evident, as more illnesses were linked to obsolete pesticides.

He said Ethiopia was facing one of the most severe problems of the 53 countries in Africa. It is believed to have around 1,000 sites all over the country contaminated by chemical pesticides.

The FAO – which in 1994 became the first organisation to start removing pesticides from Africa - is now launching the biggest ever chemical clean-up programme in the world to dispose of them. It estimates there are some 3,500 tonnes of obsolete pesticides, contaminated soils and containers in Ethiopia alone.

Each tonne costs US $3,000 to dispose of. So far 113 tonnes in Ethiopia have been destroyed. The chemicals were transported to Finland where they could be disposed of properly.

According to the FAO, it will cost in the region of US $250 million to dispose of all the dangerous chemicals in Africa – and could take some 70 years. Ten countries including Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Mali are to be targeted in the first round to eradicate the chemicals.

Dr Alemayehu, who works at the FAO headquarters in Rome, said that many developing countries face the same problem but in Africa there is very little awareness of the dangers.

“This is a toxic time bomb,” he added. “A lot of the stocks are over 20 years old and are already finding their way into the water supply.”