finally being reviewed

HHPs are pesticides that harm human health, the environment and agricultural sustainability. These pesticides can lead to acute or long-term health issues, including cancers, birth defects and organ damage. They harm wildlife, soil and water.

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“The pesticide management policy gave us a clear and commendable vision in 2010,” Ntuli said. “It is now our collective responsibility to turn that vision into reality.”

Colette Solomon, the director of the Women on Farms Project, spoke of historical injustices underpinning agriculture, with most farmworkers and -dwellers still landless and dependent on labour for survival.

“It’s important to remember that because of that history, and despite 30 years post-1994, there still exist significant race, class and gender power inequalities on farms,” she said. “Women farmworkers, especially seasonal workers, have very little power to assert and claim the rights which they have.”

She argued that the state has failed farmworkers, allowing the importation and registration of pesticides banned in the European Union because they are so harmful. “Why are we allowing such pesticides to be registered here?”

Solomon also criticised the department for what she described as regulatory capture, giving CropLife South Africa “disproportionate and worrying” influence over policy.

She pointed to Kenya’s ban of 50 HHPs earlier this year as an example of decisive action.