When Monday Nweze left for his farmland on a cloudy Tuesday in late June, he had one thing in mind: to clear the grass that had grown on it. Not with any cutlass, but with some litres of uproot, a type of herbicide, he poured into his sprayer.
The farmer was engrossed as he sprayed the herbicide on his bushy land where he planned to cultivate rice in Ndiebor community in Ezza Inyimagu, Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, south-east Nigeria.
Aside from the sprayer strapped to his back, Mr Nweze did not put on any personal protective equipment (PPE) – not even a nose or face mask. Spraying herbicides and other agrochemicals without PPE has become a routine for him and many other farmers in the community.
Like others, Mr Nweze uses various pesticides and other agrochemicals to either control weeds or insects on his farmlands, which measure over two hectares.
But he puts his life and the environment at risk. The farmer, too, is aware of the steep cost of his actions. In 2012, he suffered pesticide poisoning during application.
“I battled for my life. I was growing very weak daily and then hospitalised,” he recalled. “It was later that they (doctors) advised me that I should cover my nose and body (when using agrochemicals).”
When asked why he was not using protective covering despite his earlier experience, Mr Nweze claimed that the agrochemicals produced these days are not as effective as the ones before, and that his body had adjusted to their effect.
“Before now, if I am spraying the chemicals here, if the breeze pushes them to the other side of the land, it will affect the crops there,” he told PREMIUM TIMES, pointing at a nearby farmland.
“But, I still take medicine after spraying (to reduce the effect on my health). After spraying the chemicals, I often suffer from catarrh, which sometimes results in malaria.
“These agrochemicals we are using are not good. And that’s why organisms like earthworms, you can’t see it – they are killed by the chemicals. You know earthworms soften the soil. It has agricultural importance,” Mr Nweze said.
Why agrochemicals despite health risks
Mr Nweze said that despite understanding the risks involved in the use of agrochemicals, he and others are compelled to rely on them because of the enormous costs involved in deploying better alternatives to clear the weeds.
“Now, to clear a portion of land, they (labourers) would ask for N14,000. But if you buy a litre of this chemical at N1,500, you can use it to spray everywhere. That’s why many are even cultivating rice here. Before now, it used to be only for the rich,” he said.
The farmer admitted that organic farming is better and is a natural method of pest control, which also helps soil fertility, but regretted that land scarcity forced many to abandon it.
Organic farming is a system that relies on natural processes such as the use of green manure and the practice of crop rotation and shifting cultivation to maintain soil health rather than using synthetic fertilisers and agrochemicals.
“Before, we (used to) practice shifting cultivation. But right now, we don’t do it because of the scarcity of land,” Mr Nweze said.
‘Sweet poison’
Many Nigerian farmers rely on agrochemicals to fight pests and control weeds for improved crop productivity because they believe the chemicals make farming cheaper and faster. But not many of them are aware that the use of these chemicals harms the environment, including humans, animals and plants.
Both local and international studies have shown that exposure to pesticides and other agrochemicals is a major cause of cancer, cardiovascular disease, dermatitis, birth defects, morbidity, impaired immune function, neurobehavioral disorder and allergy sensitisation reaction. One study even linked exposure to agricultural pesticides to Parkinson’s disease.
“Agrochemical poisoning can lead to death,” Tanimola Akande, a public health expert, told PREMIUM TIMES in July.
Farmers, farm workers, and their families in agrarian communities experience highest pesticide exposure, which puts them in high risk of cancer, birth defects, autism and other diseases, according to the Pesticides Action Network, a coalition of over 600 NGOs and individuals in over 90 countries, including Nigeria, working to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with ecologically socially just alternatives.
Data on the number of deaths linked to the use of agrochemicals in Nigeria are unavailable. But in 2020, at least 270 people in Nigeria’s north-central state of Benue were reported in local media to have died due to pesticide poisoning from a contaminated river.
Similarly, a report by Alliance for Action on Pesticide in Nigeria (AAPN) and Small-scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) on farm chemical poisoning from 2008 to 2022 showed 24 incidents across the country that resulted in 454 deaths, including pregnant women and children.
Globally, pesticide poisoning kills 220,000 people annually, mostly in developing countries, out of at least three million cases of pesticide poisoning, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
‘Helpful and harmful’
For Ogochukwu Mbam, another Nigerian farmer who cultivates rice and cassava in Ndiebor Community, agrochemicals are both helpful and harmful. Unlike many farmers, Mr Mbam uses PPE, but he still suffers from nasal obstruction whenever he uses agrochemicals on his farmlands.
“While spraying (the chemicals), you will certainly get nasal obstruction. There is no way you will go for agrochemicals (without getting) nasal obstruction. It weakens the body. Most times, after inhaling those agrochemicals, it must affect you,” said the 29-year-old whose farmlands measure more than four hectares.
Apart from health impacts, Mr Mbam, who began using agrochemicals four years ago, also suffers from another adverse effect of agrochemicals: low crop yields.
“It helps in controlling the pests and even the weeds… but it is both helpful and harmful,” he said.
“It has been affecting me because it reduces the nutrients in farmlands. Before we started using agrochemicals, we usually used cutlasses to cut grass, pack it outside and then cultivate the land.
“You can’t compare the nutrients in the farmlands now and the nutrients available in farmlands when we were not using agrochemicals,” the farmer added, suggesting that crops yield better without agrochemicals.
While conceding that organic farming is safer and helps crop yields, Mr Mbah blamed the scarcity of labourers and high labour costs for his reliance on agrochemicals.
“Organic farming method is preferable health-wise, both for the crops and the farmer himself. One is that agrochemicals affect our health. Most times, it is because there is no worker who can help; that’s why we go for those agrochemicals,” he said.
Mass deaths
Ngozi Uguru is a cassava and yam farmer in Abofia-Mgbo Agbaja, another community in Ndiachi, Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. Each time she sprays pesticides and other agrochemicals on her farm, Mrs Uguru suffers adverse health reactions. She does not use any PPE.
“My whole body usually hurts me like I sprinkled pepper on (my) skin,” Mrs Uguru said, in Igbo language, demonstrating with her hands. Like most farmers in the local area, she relies on herbal medicines to “stabilise” her health.
However, before starting to use pesticides, the mother of four did not know that exposure to pesticides and other agrochemicals was harmful to human health and the environment, including crops.
PREMIUM TIMES asked the 36-year-old if anyone had fallen ill in the area in the past because of exposure to agrochemicals.
“The year when people started using agrochemicals newly around here, someone sprayed it on his farmland, and the wife used vegetables harvested from the same farmland to cook, it killed many, and some survived too,” Friday Uguru, her husband’s brother, responded.
Mr Uguru, a small-scale farmer, said the mass deaths happened in a village in Ezea Inyimagu between 2012 and 2013.
“That was when I suspected that agrochemicals are poisonous,” he stated.
The farmer would later discover that agrochemicals are also harmful to crops and the environment after he observed that some “beneficial organisms”, such as centipedes and earthworms, died off in his farmlands after spraying the agrochemicals.
“And some of these insects are helping to soften the soil, but they are not available (anymore) in farmlands around here,” he said.
Chijioke Agbo began using agrochemicals more than four years ago to reduce the cost of weeding and ward off monkeys attacking his farmlands in Obeagu Awkunanaw Community in Enugu Council Area of Enugu State.
Rated by residents as the farmer with the largest farm in the community, the father of four boasts of farmlands measuring over three hectares where he farms yams, cassava, cocoyam, maize and vegetables.
Like others, he has not contemplated ditching agrochemicals and synthetic fertilisers, despite knowing the health risks.
“For over five years now, I haven’t contracted labourers to weed or clear my farmlands. I use agrochemicals to control weeds and pests,” Mr Agbo said boastfully. The farmer quickly dashed into his store and came out with a carton of various agrochemicals, including liquid fertilisers.
But he, too, has been experiencing some health challenges due to exposure to the agrochemicals. “Each time I apply the chemicals on my farmlands, I usually suffer heavy itching for three or four days because the breeze often pushes the chemicals onto my body,” he lamented.
The farmer said he usually rubs palm oil and vaseline on the affected part of his body, but that it does not stop the itching. He has no PPE.
Asked why he still uses agrochemicals despite the danger to his health, he cited the high cost of labour for weeding his farmlands and the attacks by monkeys and other pests.
Unlike Mr Agbo, Chioma Oje, another farmer in the community, applies pesticides on her cassava and vegetable farmlands but has yet to suffer any adverse effect on her health.
But Mr Akande, a professor of public health at the University of Ilorin, explained to PREMIUM TIMES that agrochemical poisoning can lead to death either “immediately or kill slowly” depending on the type, quantity and frequency of exposure to the chemicals.
“I learnt that if one sprays pesticides on crops, the person should wait for some time before harvesting the crops,” Mrs Oje recalled, admitting that exposure to agrochemicals poses health risks.
In the course of this investigation, this reporter, in July, visited Okwadike Care Hospital, a health facility in the community, to ascertain if the facility had diagnosed medical conditions linked to agrochemical exposure.
Nkechi Okolie, a medical laboratory scientist in the hospital, told PREMIUM TIMES that multiple test results show that apart from malaria and typhoid, liver and kidney failures are dominant issues suffered by farmers who visit the treatment facility.
Ms Okolie said that high exposure to certain agrochemicals can lead to kidney damage and liver inflammation.
“I can’t really say if their conditions were caused by exposure to agrochemicals. But after running the tests, I noticed that their kidneys have high creatinine levels in the blood, indicating kidney problems,” she said.
From biodiversity to chemical accumulation in food crops
Apart from the risks posed to human health, agrochemicals are dangerous to biodiversity, which is important for crop productivity, experts say.
“One of the key implications the use of these pesticides and other agrochemicals has is the destruction of biodiversity,” Joyce Brown, an agroforestry expert, told PREMIUM TIMES.
“Pesticides and other agrochemicals not only destroy the target weeds and pests, they also destroy beneficial microorganisms, which are mostly responsible for the health of these soils and productivity,” said Ms Brown, the director of programmes at Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), a Nigeria-based organisation advocating for environmental and climate justice and food sovereignty in Africa.
But the destruction is not limited to biodiversity. Yakubu Uwaidem, a crop protectionist, says agrochemicals absorbed by crops during application on farmlands can affect human health.
“Plants have the ability to harbour heavy metals and components that they will not use,” Mr Uwaidem explained. “So, plants harbour every component of these chemicals and use only the ones they need, while the ones they don’t need will remain in their system. It is the end users, that’s the consumers of the crops, that will be taking those things into their system.”
A 2021 study conducted in Osun State, south-west Nigeria, by six researchers across universities in Africa, found that crops readily absorbed harmful pesticides, which endanger the lives of those who consume food items.
Mr Uwaidem stressed that Nigerian farmers lack knowledge of proper agrochemical application, noting that the type of target pests, plants and dosage are central in choosing the application method and timing for better results.
Between organic farming and inorganic farming
Years ago, Damian Edeh, a small-scale farmer in Amankpaka Nike, Enugu East Council Area of Enugu State, began using animal faeces, mainly pig dung, on his farmlands.
Mr Edeh, an engineer and the traditional ruler of the community, detests agrochemicals like a plague. He had learnt through research and interactions with medical experts that agrochemicals are harmful to health and the environment.
“I have a modest farmland, not too large, but the yields are huge, even better than yields from farmlands of those who use agrochemicals,” he said, dismissing the claim that agrochemicals are better in improving crop yields.
“I don’t use agrochemicals on my farmlands because I know they cause cancer. I depend on the farmland for my food. I don’t buy food items in the market.”
The traditional ruler, concerned about the health of his family, exports food items harvested from his farm to his children who are based outside Nigeria.
For Jude Eze, another farmer in the neighbouring Ugwogo-Nike Community, agrochemicals “make farming easier” and reduce labour costs. He said that, although he uses agrochemicals, crops harvested from farmlands where chemicals are not used are better off.
“For instance, if you harvest cassava from farmland where they did not apply agrochemicals, after fermentation, the cassava tubers would yield more than those from farmlands where they applied agrochemicals,” he explained in Igbo language.
Nigeria is a dumping ground for EU-banned agrochemicals
The European Union (EU) has banned the use of some pesticides across Europe after they were found to cause severe damage to human health and the environment. The EU, however, faces criticism for allowing companies to manufacture these hazardous pesticides in the EU for export to other countries with weak regulations.
Consequently, like other low-income countries, Nigeria has become a dumping ground for the Europe-based agrochemical companies exporting banned toxic pesticides.
In 2018 alone, more than 81,000 tonnes of pesticides containing EU-banned hazardous chemicals were exported to low-income countries like Nigeria, according to the European Environmental Bureau.
In West Africa, pesticide imports doubled from 218,948 tonnes in 2015 to 437,930 tonnes in 2020. Within the same 2020, Nigeria imported 147,446 tonnes of pesticides, which exceeded the total imports of Southern Africa (87,403 tonnes) and North Africa (109,561 tonnes).
A 2022 study by the German Heinrich Boll Foundation revealed that some EU-banned hazardous pesticides are being used in Nigeria by farmers.
A similar study by the AAPN, in 2021, found that 40 per cent of all the pesticides used in Nigeria had been banned by the EU due to their high toxicity.
About 80 per cent of pesticides used by women in parts of Nigeria’s north-central region belong to the category of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs). In many instances, such pesticides have lost approval in countries and regions with high safety standards, such as the EU, the AAPN study showed.
The US and European countries have continued to reject food items exported from Nigeria because of the high level of agrochemicals, mainly pesticides, in them.
In Nigeria, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) regulates the production and use of food and drugs, including agrochemicals.
Despite the regulation, however, banned agrochemicals are still in use across the country.
Posing as a buyer, a PREMIUM TIMES reporter found that some agrochemicals, which contain active ingredients banned by NAFDAC and the EU, were on sale in open markets in Enugu and Ebonyi states.
In the Ogbete and Aria markets in Enugu State, for instance, this reporter found Atraz, a type of herbicide, being sold openly in these markets. Atraz contains Atrazine, an active ingredient banned by NAFDAC in 2023.
The chemical was banned by the EU in 2003 after evidence surfaced that it “interferes with reproduction and development, and may cause cancer.”
When contacted in July, Christiana Obiazikwor, a NAFDAC spokesperson, asked this reporter to contact her via WhatsApp.
But Ms Obiazikwor was yet to respond to the enquiry from this reporter several weeks later.
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What can be done
To address agrochemical poisoning in Nigeria, authorities must effectively regulate the importation, sale and use of agrochemicals in the country, according to experts.
“There is virtually no regulation on the sales and use of agrochemicals (in Nigeria). It is important to put in regulations and enforce such regulations,” Mr Akande, the Nigerian-based public health expert, said.
For Ms Brown, the agroforestry expert, the Nigerian authorities should immediately ban the use and sale of chemicals in the HHPs category and introduce restrictions on harmful chemicals.
The HOMEF director suggested empowering farmers and agroecologists to produce organic pesticides and fertilisers using readily available raw materials, such as ginger, garlic, and pepper.
“With such pesticides, you’re sure you are not destroying beneficial microorganisms,” she said.
This report was supported by the Alliance for Action on Pesticide in Nigeria