Poison for Kenya’s smallholders

I was in Kenya in April 2023 and researched activities of Swiss pesticide companies in the country. A background article on the subject was published in the International section of WOZ. It shows that many products sold by the Swiss-Chinese company Syngenta in agrovets all over the country are now banned in Europe because they contain highly toxic active ingredients. They harm the environment, can cause cancer or damage hormone balance in humans. In Kenya, however, they reach millions of smallholders through sophisticated marketing. What’s more, a new report of the "Route to Food" initiative in Nairobi shows, that tons of these highly toxic active ingredients are imported into Kenya every year. In 2020, Syngenta, headquartered in Switzerland, sold more than 500 tones of pesticides in Kenya, of which 68 percent are Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs).