Death in small doses – Cambodia’s pesticide peril

Having emerged from decades of war and internal strife as one of the world’s poorest countries, Cambodia faces a new and less obvious threat: the poisoning of its people, food, water and wildlife by chemical pesticides. Cambodia is becoming a dumping ground for pesticides deemed by the World Health Organisation to be ‘highly or extremely hazardous to human health’. Mike Shanahan and Steve Trent of the Environmental Justice Foundation report on the problem and recommend measures to address the situation.

It is the hottest hour of the day and in Prek Lavea Village, Mrs Nou Touch is sitting in the shade, resting from her morning’s work spraying mung bean fields. She tells us that she uses a mixture of up to ten pesticides, which she stores in a bag hanging beneath her stilt house. Her current cocktail includes the fertilisers Aminomix and BM-999, and the pesticides Visher 25ND (cypermethrin), Vicidi-M 50ND (phenthoate and ethofenprox), Phitor (mevinphos), Folidol (methyl parathion), Thom 70 and Phosdrin (both methamidophos). The latter three chemicals are banned by the Royal Government of Cambodia, but Nou Touch is unaware that such legislation exists. Although she can read, she cannot understand the products’ instructions as none are labelled in Khmer, Cambodia’s national language. Nou Touch’s eyes are red and itchy – she never wears a mask or gloves. On other days she gets headaches, and feels cold and numb at her extremities. In a few hours she will return to the field for the day’s second pesticide application. 
    This situation may appear extreme, but Nou Touch is a typical Cambodian farmer.

Pesticide use in Cambodia
Agriculture, rice in particular, forms the cornerstone of culture and food security in Cambodia, where over one-third of the population live below the poverty line, 90% of them in rural areas(1). Increasing food demands, seductive marketing and ready availability of agrochemicals have led to widespread pesticide use in agriculture. However, the majority of chemicals reaching Cambodian fields are banned because of health concerns and are imported illegally from Thailand and Vietnam. Lacking Cambodian instructions, these products are used by untrained and often illiterate farmers who are largely unaware of the risks.
    Consequently, inappropriate practice is rife. UN medical epidemiologist Helen Murphy says of Cambodia, ‘I have never seen such hazardous pesticides used in any country in such a hazardous fashion’.(2)
    Pesticides are used at the wrong time, in the wrong strength, and against the wrong pests. Products are often mixed, creating more dangerous chemical cocktails. Furthermore, the majority of users fail to protect themselves from the powerful compounds, exposing themselves to direct poisoning by inhalation or skin contact. Gloves, masks and other protective clothing are virtually absent, being prohibitively expensive and impractical in the Cambodian heat. Consequently, farmers are routinely poisoned. Nearly 90% of pesticide-using Cambodian farmers recently surveyed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had experienced symptoms of pesticide poisoning during or after spraying(3). These included chest pains, night sweats, dizziness, vomiting (35%), and loss of consciousness.
    Mr San Kim Chhay, another farmer in Prek Lavea suffers from chronic joint pain, dizziness and skin complaints during the spraying season. In spite of associating these symptoms with pesticide use, he says, ‘Sometimes my ten year old son does the spraying.’ Such exposure of children to agrochemicals is widespread – about half of Cambodian farmers allow their children to spray crops(4).
    Only 7% of respondents in the FAO survey changed their clothes after spraying and one half did not wash their hands. Worryingly, in a different study in 2000, 51% of farmers mixed pesticides in drinking water containers(5).
    Given that the pesticides most commonly used are known to be capable of disrupting nervous system function, inducing cancer or killing outright, Cambodia faces a public health disaster on a grand scale. It is ironic then that the Khmer translation of ‘pesticide’ includes the word ‘thnam’, meaning medicine.

Other impacts
Under current patterns of usage, pesticides have the potential to pollute food and water supplies. Crops are often sprayed excessively frequently and often right until harvest. High levels of residues on market produce seem likely under these conditions, but the government lacks capacity to conduct monitoring. 
    Fish, the source of 75% of protein in Cambodian diets, are also at risk of contamination(6). Sixty per cent of Cambodia’s commercial catch is drawn from the Tonle Sap, the largest lake in South East Asia. It is estimated that in 2000, 1.3 million litres of pesticides were used in the Tonle Sap catchment(7) and in recent years, ten tonnes of the dangerous chemicals DDT and methyl-parathion have entered the Tonle Sap as run-off from crops(8). Furthermore, pesticides including Folidol (methyl parathion) and Thodat (endosulfan) are actually used to kill fish for human consumption(9,10). Use of mevinphos and dichlorvos to protect dried fish from insects has also been recorded(11).
    Cambodia’s pesticide problems do not end with concerns about human wellbeing; ecosystem health is also under threat. The agrochemicals used by Cambodian farmers are known to be responsible for killing thousands of wild birds in mass-poisonings that contributed to their being banned elsewhere. In winter 1995-6, monocrotophos, an organophosphate compound, was responsible for the death of 20,000 Swainson’s Hawks in Argentina and was subsequently banned in the US(12). Today, it is one of the most commonly used pesticides in Cambodia. Monocrotophos is very toxic to non-target invertebrates, in particular bees, lacewing and a range of other predatory insects.
    ‘Birds die after eating larvae and fish die in the rice fields,’ says San Kim Chhay. By killing non-target species, pesticides impact many species beneficial to agriculture. These farmers’ friends include frogs, birds and fish, and a broad range of insects that feed on or parasitise pest species. Removal of these natural enemies, together with the pests’ resistance to pesticides encouraged by current practice, impacts food security and traps poor farmers on the ‘pesticides treadmill’, stimulating increased use to control perceived threats. 
    High levels of pesticide residues on crops have further potential to damage the Cambodian economy, impacting the country’s burgeoning export market and tourist industry. These impacts are a major impediment to Cambodia’s development targets. 

Product stewardship
Despite being widely banned or restricted in the developed world, some of the agrochemicals available in Cambodia are formulated in Asia for Western agrochemical giants. The industry spends an estimated US$1 billion annually on advertising and marketing in Asia(13); in Cambodia, pesticides are widely perceived as trappings of modernity and their use has become a status symbol among the rural poor. 
    The agrochemical industry’s product stewardship programmes fall short of pledges promoting safe use. For example, according to the website(14) of German agrochemical giant Bayer, ‘Product stewardship does not end at the factory gate. At Bayer, environmental and safety aspects of a product are critically examined for the entire life of the product’. Bayer is the manufacturer of Folidol (methyl-parathion), considered by the WHO to be ‘extremely hazardous to human health’, and recently linked to the deaths of 24 children in Peru(15). Folidol remains one of the most commonly used pesticides in Cambodia, despite being banned by the government. Much of Cambodia’s Folidol is labelled in Thai and instructions for safe use are unintelligible to most users. This can hardly be considered safe for the product’s ‘entire life’. Such manufacture and supply of chemicals (severely restricted in the West) to countries unable to ensure safe use is ethically questionable. 
    The agrochemical industry needs to seriously analyse the long-term economic and social costs and benefits of a cessation of production of WHO Class I chemicals like Folidol. In the interim, a significant improvement in the safety labelling for products marketed to developing nations is essential.

Many Cambodian farmers, often unable to read product labels, do not know basic precautions related to pesticide use. Photo: Juliette Williams / EJF

The way forward
Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that Cambodian pesticide use is often unnecessary. Many rice pests do not seriously affect yield and can be controlled by natural predators. Integrated pest management (IPM), organic farming or rice-fish culture can represent safe and economically viable alternatives to current practices. Elsewhere in Asia, IPM has realised 50-100% reductions in pesticide use without impacting yield(16). To date, 37,828 farmers have received IPM training in Cambodia and 717 have been become farmer-trainers themselves(17). This is the result of strong coordination between Cambodia’s National IPM Programme and outside agencies, which provided technical and financial assistance.
    Local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are also making efforts to address Cambodia’s pesticide problems. One NGO, CEDAC conducts research on pesticide availability and health impacts, educates farmers about the dangers of pesticide misuse and is promoting a shift to organic production. CEDAC has produced a Khmer educational video and other materials, which are disseminated throughout rural areas.
    By banning the most dangerous chemicals and encouraging alternative practices in agriculture, Cambodia has shown the political will to address pesticide problems, but it is presently lacking in capacity and is unable to enforce domestic legislation. 
    Further action is needed both from government and outside agencies, and agrochemical companies. There is an urgent need for a moratorium on pesticide advertisement until Cambodia can enforce its laws and farmers understand the dangers to which they are exposed and how to avoid them. Cambodia should also accede to the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent (PIC), thereby further signalling to the donor community its dedication to tackling these problems and enabling the government to officially record that certain chemicals formulated in neighbouring countries are not desired in Cambodia. 
    Considerable funding and technical assistance from the international community must reach the Cambodian authorities and NGOs like CEDAC. In particular, outside assistance is required to identify and deal with stocks of obsolete pesticides, to facilitate residue monitoring and to promote alternative practices. Additionally, a broad-based educational programme is required to promote a reduction of pesticide use, risk and dependence.

Conclusion
Only with concerted efforts from the government, the international donor community and NGOs, and a more responsible approach from the agrochemical industry, will Cambodia be able to address these issues and avoid the slow poisoning currently threatening the country’s long-term development targets. Without action, death will come in these small chemical doses.

References
1. The World Bank, The World Bank and Cambodia, May 2000, www.worldbank.org/eap
2. Television Trust for the Environment (TVE), Toxic Trail (TV documentary), 2001, www.toxictrail.org
3. Sodavy P, Sitha M, Nugent R, and Murphy H, Farmers’ awareness and perceptions of the effects of pesticides on their health, FAO Community IPM Programme Field Document, April 2000.
4. Ibid.
5. CIAP, Upland and deepwater rice practices, CIAP Bulletin, June 2000, Vol. 5, #6.
6. Ahmed et. al., Socio-economic Assessment of Freshwater Capture Fisheries of Cambodia, Mekong River Commission, 1998.
7. Koma YS, et. al., The Situation of Pesticide Use in the Tonle Sap Catchment, CEDAC, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2001.
8. Whitten M, A role for small-scale farmers and rural communities in reducing the entry of POPs into the environment, Proceedings of Regional Workshop on the Management of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), Hanoi, Vietnam, UNEP, 19 March 1999. 
9. Loring D, Struggling to keep Cambodia off the pesticide treadmill, Global Pesticide Campaigner, December 1995. 
10. Review of the Fishery Conflict in Stung Treng, NGO Forum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2000.
11. Insecticides on foods in market, Charet Khmer, 11-12 October 2001, Vol. 3, No. 34. 
12. www.hawk-conservancy.org/priors/swainson.htm
13. TVE, Op. cit. 2.
14. www.bayer.com/en/unternehmen/unternehmenspolitik/umwelt/produkte.html
15. Pesticides News No. 46, December 1999, p3.
16. FAO, Summary of FAO Capacity building efforts in pesticide management, 1999, www.fao.org
17. Chhay N, Report on IPM Activities in Cambodia (1993-2001), January 2002, Department for Agronomy and Agricultural Land Improvement, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

This article is based in part on ‘Death in Small Doses: Cambodia’s Pesticide Problems and Solution’. Environmental Justice Foundation, London, 2002, available online at the address below.

Contact: Steve Trent (Director) or Mike Shanahan (Project Coordinator), Environmental Justice Foundation, 5 St Peter’s Street, London N1 8JD. Email: ejfoundation@cs.com,Website: www.ejfoundation.org

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 56, June 2002, pages 6-7]