Use Of Herbicides: How Saadatu Garba Kutafe Are They? David Aduge-Ani — Nov 7, 2014 | 3 Comments It has become common practice for many Nigerian farmers to use chemicals or herbicides on their farmlands and some people even use it on their lawns to control weeds and pests, but how safe for humans are these chemicals? DAVID ADUGE-ANI writes On May 20, 2014, Mary, a resident of Nyanya-Abuja became sick and was admitted in one of the hospitals in the area. After medical examinations, the doctors discovered that she was suffering from fever, breathing difficulties, diarrhea and sore nose. It was revealed that the fumigation activity carried out in her house two days before she took ill may have been responsible for her situation. “The doctors who treated me in the hospital warned me after I was discharged to desist from careless use of pesticides or even herbicides which they said were the likely causes of my illness,” she told LEADERSHIP Weekend. The use of pesticides, herbicides or chemicals on farmlands and in homes to control pests and weeds seems to be in vogue among city dwellers, gardeners and farmers. However, users of these products hardly think of the health implications of these chemicals. In time past, people used cutlasses for weeding in their farms or in their compounds. That has however changed. What most people do these days is to spray herbicides on the grasses and the following day, all the grasses would dry up. The registrar, Environmental Health officers Registration Council of Nigeria (EHORECON), Augustine Ebisike told LEADERSHIP Weekend that the society is at risk when chemicals are exposed wrongly, adding that a lot of illnesses have emerged in many homes as a result of the indiscriminate use of chemicals. “There are so many illnesses these days in many homes resulting from exposure to pesticides and the consumption of food from farmlands where chemicals may have been used for killing grasses. For instance, in the good old days, the incidents of cancer were very rare and not as we see today,” he said. Recently, US-based National Academy of Sciences reported that at least one out of seven people are significantly harmed by pesticide exposure each year. The academy also added that the world-wide deaths and chronic diseases due to pesticide poisoning number about one million per year. An Abuja-based agricultural expert, Daniel Onoja told LEADERSHIP Weekend that weed killers and pesticides, by their nature, can harm organisms including humans. “Herbicides or chemicals and other pesticides, by their components, can harm human beings and other organisms. They can harm families, neighbours, pets, and all other forms of life within the environment where they are sprayed,” he said. According to Ebisike, “one thing we should bear in mind is that every chemical has side effects. The shortcomings often come from the people using these chemicals. If you watch them apply these chemicals, most of them do not protect themselves. “You cannot be spraying those things without wearing protective shoes or special hand gloves because as you spray the herbicides or germicides, some of them might touch your body, and it is being absorbed into the body which is very unhealthy. Also, when they spray it on the farmland and they eventually kill the leaves, you will learn that some of the residues would be absorbed into the plant and are eaten by human beings.” Most people who apply these chemicals, according to Onoja, are ignorant when it comes to proper protection and safety precautions. “Most people don’t even look at the warnings or their toxins. They don’t wear gloves, goggles or protective clothing to minimise bodily exposure. Many don’t inform people to keep off the contaminated area after chemicals are applied,” he said. In most Nigerian markets, agricultural chemicals and pesticides are openly displayed for sale which Ebisike strongly warned against. “These chemicals have serious health implications and that is why in many countries, the use of herbicides is seriously controlled. But in Nigeria, if you visit many markets, they are displayed and sold to the general public anyhow. “In some other countries, before you sell such chemicals, you must be somebody who is trained on how to handle them. You must equally have a licence that allows you to handle such a chemical. It is not something you queue up to buy from the open market,” he said. He called for proper control of the distribution and sale of chemicals in the society saying that, “we should go back to the bases and regulate the distribution and use of not only herbicides but every chemical. The bottom line is that some people are making money from distributing the chemicals in the country but the system should be able to take out those people and regulate them properly. That is why you see things like acid bath in the society. This is because these chemicals are readily available in the markets.”
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 21:43:51 +0000
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