AFRICAN LEADERS MUST REVIEW PESTICIDES REGULATIONS

Dangerous use of Pesticides in most African Countries

African countries need stronger pesticide regulation and a better understanding of how pesticides behave in tropical climates, according to experts behind a series of articles published in Science today. They also need an international body to carry out regular pesticide safety assessments - ensuring they are used properly by farmers who are given thorough training in their use - and to monitor the safety of chemical levels in food, the experts say.

In most villages in rural Africa, poor farmers wash even wash seedlings treated with pesticides and consume them for food.

In the face of projections that the global population will reach nine billion by 2050, scientists must develop new technologies to make pesticides safer, and continue research into crops that will not require pesticides at all, according to the special section in Science.

Millions of tones of pesticides are used each year in agriculture, sometimes with poor oversight and knowledge regarding their environmental impact, particularly in developing countries.

A review article by a team led by Kathrin Fenner, a senior scientist at the Eawag aquatic research institute in Switzerland, looks at pesticide degradation. It also identifies knowledge gaps in what happens to pesticides once they are applied in the field.

According to Fenner, the biggest challenge is relating what is measured in laboratory studies to what is observed long-term in the environment. One example is what happens to pesticides that have been in the soil for a long time and what products they leave behind as they degrade.

"There are situations that are not covered, or not fully covered, by laboratory studies, especially situations in low concentrations in groundwater," Fenner says.

Furthermore, laboratory studies carried out for pesticide regulation in the United States or Europe look at factors specific to those regions, such as climate and soil type, and not at the warmer climate zones where many developing countries lie.

"How relevant that really is to more tropical settings, where you have more organic, carbon-rich soils and higher temperatures, is also somewhat of a knowledge gap," says Fenner.