The founder of The Green Net, Helen Dodge, responds to Veroni Wichmann’s letter ‘No sensible farmer would use insecticide willy-nilly‘ published in last week’s Herald.
I do not believe for a minute that farmers or food retailers (including spaza shop owners) would knowingly hurt or kill anybody with their products. There is no reason at all to assume that we have such people in our community or that it would make sense to operate a business in this way, especially in a ‘small town’ like the South Coast where people know who’s who. This is why I referred to blaming the spaza shop owners for the poisonings as a witch-hunt – which is what it would be if everyone blamed the farmers if food grown according to the legal requirements made anyone sick.
The problem with agricultural pesticides lies not with the farmers but with the Department of Agriculture, which promulgates legislation, approves poisons for agricultural use, and often supplies the seeds, fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides used by the farmers. Our Department of Health could make an important contribution in this respect by involving themselves in the regulation of poisons allowed into SA and by extending their focus on nutrition and food safety. And the Department of Education should be helping people make more informed decisions around what they eat and what they buy.
The lack of integration between various government departments regarding this issue might explain why so many children are accidentally poisoned in SA. I have personally known two young children who died from drinking insecticide and three who were hospitalised only last week after eating icing sugar. The granny had had no idea that her ‘Doom’ could affect the icing sugar or hurt the kids. Thankfully, the doctors acted fast, and the three boys are fine now.
This is a political issue, not because of party politics, but because political will is required to change or enforce legislation. The list of poisons allowed into SA was last updated in the 1970s and includes 192 Highly Hazardous Poisons (HHPs), of which over a third are banned overseas. More integrated collaboration between our government departments would surely go a long way towards ensuring food production systems that support farmers with products and methods that also best serve the health of consumers and the overall environment. I only mentioned BEE as an example of contradiction in our legislation: while BEE strives to improve life for South Africans, lapses in other legislative areas threaten to erode the gains made, especially when large-scale activities and/or lack of law enforcement contribute to health problems.
Regarding our local farmers – it seems to be up to individual farmers to decide whether and how to reduce their chemical inputs. Regenerative agriculture is gaining a lot of traction here and globally. It is a range of systems used by farmers to regenerate their soil, reduce water requirements and ultimately produce cleaner food in a safer environment. A lot of this is happening in the Oribi Gorge area, where macadamias, lavender, tea tree and other crops are grown together, and farmers have managed substantially to reduce their chemical inputs – as opposed to what we see in some other areas, where residents report having to leave home and stay with friends for a week whenever crop spraying takes place. Notably, the recipient of the Young Farmer of the Year Award 2024, issued by the KZN Agricultural Union, Guy English, has been employing regenerative farming methods and demonstrates a growing trend towards farming methods that grow soil and reduce chemical use.
We are all learning as we go, and we often bump up against the unintended consequences of systems that made sense when they started. To quote Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” We all have opportunities to do better every day for ourselves and our children, and it’s up to each of us to choose what we’re adding to the future we’re building.
P.S. For info on regenerative agriculture in SA visit: https://regenz.co.za/resources/regenerative-agriculture-in-south-africa/, https://www.regenagsa.org.za
HELEN DODGE
Founder of The Green Net
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