[imagesource:znetwork]

More than 200 women from farms across the Western Cape, who marched on Parliament yesterday to call for a ban on dangerous pesticides, were met with a strong police presence and stun grenades.

The march followed the government’s decision to renege on its promise to phase out pesticides, instead, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has gazetted guidelines for exemptions on pesticide use.

Under the banner of the Women on Farms Project (WFP), they carried placards that read: “Don’t poison us” and “Ban pesticides now”.

In April 2022, the department gave notice that certain pesticides, including chemicals linked to cancer, genetic mutations, and harmful to reproductive health, would be phased out and banned by this month. In September 2022, Groundup reported that the department was in talks with the industry about this.

But instead of phasing out pesticides, the department recently gazetted guidelines for applicants to apply for “derogation” of a “substance of concern” and be granted an exemption to use the pesticides.

In a memorandum, the Women on Farms Project (WFP) said the guidelines do not provide the criteria the department’s registrar will use to decide on the registration of pesticides; that there is an “unreasonably short” period of 30 days to provide any comments on applications; and that there is no appeals process for interested parties, such as farm workers, after a decision is made.

“This move allows rich, resourced, and powerful corporations to undermine the safety and well-being of our agricultural workers and communities.”

The memorandum demands that pesticides already banned in the EU also be banned in South Africa and that the registrar, Jonathan Madzunga, meet with the workers urgently.

However, nobody from Parliament came to accept the memorandum, and after the women broke past the police line at the gates of Parliament and threw water at them,  the police pushed them back with shields and threw stun grenades to disperse the protestors.

Colette Solomon, director at WFP, said farm workers have been “totally excluded now from the decision-making”.

“They feel like their health interests have been totally overlooked”.

“To us it really does seem like it is a buckling of government to the interests of commercial farmers and, more importantly, to pesticide companies,” said Solomon. “We won’t let them forget about the most important people in the equation – farm workers and dwellers,” she told the crowd.

Seasonal farmworker Engela Masobeng said: “You work here and right there the tractor is spraying.” If farm workers can grow crops without pesticides, then farmers also can, she said.

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development had not responded to questions at the time of publication.

[source:groundup]