Stakeholders push for pesticides control bill

Says 80% farmers using hazardous chemicals

Stakeholders in agrochemicals management in Nigeria have called for the passage of an Act on pesticides by harnessing the four bills on pesticides and agrochemicals management before the National Assembly.

Speaking at a media briefing on the need to put together the related bill into a single Act that would address agrochemicals management, yesterday, in Abuja, the stakeholders said recent reports indicated that 25 per cent of registered pesticide product in Nigeria since 2019, were proven to be carcinogenic.

Professor of Agricultural Processing and Storage at the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Simon Irtwange, said that in terms of pesticides regulation, there was need for serious amendment to the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), chemicals registration process to bridge identified gaps.

Insisting that manufacturers must be made to take responsibility for the side effects caused by chemicals they produce, he said: “When you look at the four documents, (CSO Pesticides Control bill, Proposed Review of Pesticides Registration Regulation: Summary to the 2021 NAFDAC Pesticides Registration, Farmers, Consumer Bill of Rights for Agrochemicals: Framework to Safeguard the Rights of Agrochemical Users and the Extended Producer Responsibility, EPR: Presentation of Take Back Framework for Manufactures’ Accountability), it will give you a picture of what we are talking about.

“The good thing about this legislation is that the penalties are well defined,”