How do you choose which produce to buy? Because it’s in season? Locally grown? Organic? Perhaps the economic climate has you comparing price points and bundle deals. Or maybe it’s the physical appearance of the produce: only the shiniest apples and the plumpest tomatoes make it into your trolley.
Regardless of what steers your buying decisions, it’s essential to understand how highly hazardous pesticide residues (beyond recommended ‘safe limits’) – alongside extremely slow policy reforms and, at times, disregard for pesticide regulation – can impact both your health and that of the environment.
ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM
Pesticides are inherently hazardous, but it’s those classified as highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs), due to their high toxicity, that cause a disproportionate amount of severe or irreversible harm to human, animal and environmental health, according to the Global Harmonised System (GHS), which classifies health, physical and environmental hazards.
When Marcos Orellana, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, visited South Africa in August 2023, alarm bells were raised (again) about ongoing ‘environmental racism’ in the Global South.
Despite many HHPs being banned in their countries of origin since 2007/8 – based on recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) – a whopping 192 of them are still exported to South Africa. Due to a lack of effective legislation to regulate agrichemicals, they are disproportionately used in low- and middle-income countries, where citizens are more socially and economically vulnerable, and where there is less public awareness about health risks.
