The Global Pesticide Project – reducing risk in tropical agriculture 

The Global Pesticide Project was launched in 1998 in response to the scale of poisonings and worker ill-health related to pesticide use in the tropics. George Ekström and Sven-Erik Pettersson report on its activities and successes.

Workers spraying coffee, Zimbabwe, without proper personal protective equipment.

Half of the world’s labour force works in the agricultural sector. Agriculture is one of the top three hazardous occupations (after construction work and mining). Of the 1.3 billion men, women and children working in agriculture, 450 million work for wages. Some 170,000 agricultural workers die in workplace accidents every year. The rate of fatal accidents in agriculture is double that of other commercial activities. It is estimated that 40,000 agricultural workers die from exposure to pesticides every year, the majority of them in tropical agriculture(1). 
    Waged agricultural and plantation workers in tropical agriculture often use acutely toxic pesticides without personal protection. As a result, many are severely poisoned or suffer long-term effects. They often live where they work, increasing their exposure, with spray-drift contaminating them and their families. Used pesticide containers are sometimes given to workers for domestic use (storage of drinking water and foods). Poor storage and disposal facilities increase the risk of poisonings and environmental contamination. Awareness of pesticide hazards is lacking and official data on poisoning incidents and fatalities difficult to obtain. 
    Pesticide use is particularly intensive where export crops such as bananas, coffee, cotton, cut flowers, tobacco and vegetables predominate. Acreage planted to these crops is likely to increase, particularly in countries privatising and ‘modernising’ their agriculture, a process which changes cultivation patterns and crop selection favouring export crops. 

The Global Pesticide Project
Affiliates of the International Union of Food and Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) identified pesticides as one of the most serious problems with regard to worker health and safety and the environment. In 1998 IUF, in collaboration with the Swedish Farm Workers’ Union (SLF) and with funding from the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), launched a Global Pesticides Project (GPP) to address these problems. The project focused on four pilot countries in Africa (Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe), and six priority crops (bananas, cocoa, coffee, cut flowers, sugar and tea). In these four countries, a high proportion of the population is dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, both waged agricultural workers and small-scale farmers. Table 1 shows the rural populations, and the numbers estimated as illiterate. These people will be using hazardous pesticides without training, and without the ability to even read labels, both major factors in contributing to the high level of pesticide poisonings among agricultural workers. 

Table 1. Selected population data for countries participating in the Global Pesticide Project 
Country  Major cash crops  Total population and % rural 
 Illiteracy rate  Illiterate
people in 
rural areas
Ghana  Cocoa, palm oil  20 million 64%  27%  3.4 million
Tanzania  Coffee, cotton, cut flowers, sisal, tea  37 million 67%  24%  5.9 million
Uganda  Coffee, cut flowers, sugarcane, tea  25 million 85%  32%  6.8 million
Zimbabwe  Sugarcane, tea, tobacco  13 million 64%  11%  0.9 million
Total number of illiterate people in rural areas: 17 million
Source: adapted from Financial Times’ World Desk Reference 2004, Dorling Kindersley Limited, London, 2004.

  The GPP recognises that a range of measures are essential to reduce pesticide exposure, and supports a strategy shown in Box 1. The overarching objectives have been to:

Box 1. Hierarchy of controls for reducing pesticide exposure 

Most effective
1. Eliminate more highly toxic products.
2. Substitute with less toxic, equally effective alternatives or, preferably, non-chemical pest control methods.
3. Reduce use through improved equipment
4. Isolate the hazard from people (e.g. dedicated and locked pesticide storage).
5. Train applicators in integrated pest management and judicious use of pesticides.
6. Label products in a manner appropriate for local conditions. If necessary, complement international labels with text in local language(s), pictograms or colour codes as may be required by the national legislation (to cater for the needs of e.g. illiterate persons).
7. Provide and promote use of affordable, effective and reasonably comfortable personal protective equipment.
8. Institute administrative controls (e.g. job rotation, maximum working hours with spraying).
Least effective

Source: Sherwood et al, 2005, adapted from: Plog BA, Niland J, Quinlan PJ, Plogg H, Fundamentals of Industrial Hygiene, 4th ed., Ithaca, N.Y. National Safety Council, 1996.

The GPP built on the capacity of the IUF and agricultural workers’ unions to work on local, national, regional and global pesticide issues. The project targeted grass roots trade union members, shop stewards, branch officials, national union leaders, international policy makers and environmental and consumer organisations (NGOs). It built on earlier trade union study circles within education projects in Africa, and on health and safety activities carried out by Swedish agricultural labour unions in selected African countries. It collaborated with the Pesticides Trust (now Pesticides Action Network UK) and CABI Bioscience to run a training course on information systems and resources for pesticides and chemicals management in 1999 in London(2).

A simple brochure in the Shona language compiled by a group of agricultural workers during a training session in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe. 

Specific activities 
Training of trainers
To spread awareness of pesticide-related health, safety and environment issues the GPP has concentrated on training those who will be able to go back to their place of work and train others. For example, leaders of existing local trade union education study circles were trained. Courses covered occupational health and safety, focusing on pesticide risks and personal protection, how to avoid and prevent pesticide exposure, and carrying out workplace chemical surveys. Workers were also trained in alternative pest control strategies, particularly integrated production and pest management (IPPM) and organic farming, which helped raise awareness of the viability of alternative pest management strategies and strengthened workers’ ability to negotiate for risk and hazard reduction.

Computers provided
Modern computers were provided for labour union headquarters in all GPP countries to facilitate communication between the unions, help them retrieve information from the internet, and, eventually, to establish a reporting system on pesticide poisoning cases.

Joint IUF / pesticide industry training initiative
A pilot course in Uganda marked a breakthrough in trade union and pesticide industry co-operation as it was the first time they had worked together on these issues. Around 25 waged agricultural workers mainly engaged in sugar and coffee production were trained in pesticide-related health, safety, and in work practices to reduce hazards. 

Stakeholder collaboration through national co-ordinating teams
In 1998, an Agricultural Trade Group World Conference of the IUF urged its affiliates to participate in a process set up to address hazardous chemicals at part of a follow up to the Earth Summit. Governments were to develop a National Profile to assess national priorities in managing chemicals. By participating in this multi-stakeholder process, trade union members aimed to encourage governments to take their concerns on board. Uganda set up an extensive national co-ordinating team to develop their National Profile, and similar multi-stakeholder groups were established in Ghana and Tanzania.

Multistakeholder actions 
In 2001, the Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate (KEMI), initiated a pilot project for North-South and South-South collaboration. Called the ‘Wittulsberg initiative’ after the location of its first meeting, it brought together representatives of regulators, research, universities, technical agencies, trade unions and NGOs. The Wittulsberg group represents the industrial and developing world with stakeholders from Africa, Central America, South East Asia and Europe. Its recommendations for a multistakeholder approach to reduce pesticide use, risk and dependence, promote the development and implementation of sound regulation of pesticides, and support ecological alternatives to pesticides, were endorsed by the GPP.

Prior Informed Consent 
In 1998, the IUF Agricultural Trade Group World Conference urged its affiliates to press for speedy ratification of the Rotterdam Convention including the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure for certain hazardous pesticides (and other chemicals) in international trade. It also urged support for the IUF campaign to systematically collect data on pesticide user incidents and to report to the relevant government authority in order to include these pesticides in the PIC procedure.

Regional and global linkages and international impact
The IUF/GPP co-ordinators in Tanzania and Uganda were elected steering committee members of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) East Africa and thus co-operated with the international PAN. They assisted in organising the Africa Skillshare Workshop on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) under the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN).

Worker at a research center in Uganda spraying one of the dirty dozen, without PPE.

Summary
Although the original expectations of a truly global programme for pesticide risk reduction were never realised, and the GPP remained a pilot project on basically occupational safety and health in four African countries, several activities and opportunities were particularly successful. The programme highlighted pesticide problems in the agricultural work environment, and increased recognition of these in both national and global fora. IUF/GPP successfully established international links through:

These connections provided an important focus for promoting issues related to sustainable agriculture and occupational health and safety for waged labourers. A major achievement of the GPP was its success in achieving recognition from international bodies that pesticide problems affect not only small scale farmers, but also waged agricultural workers – who are probably the majority of those using pesticides in developing countries. Until this project, waged agricultural workers as a group were frequently ignored in the language of international and national agreements. 

Grassroots participation in Uganda
The Global Pesticides Project started in 1998 with agricultural trade unions in Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe dropped out in 1999 because the effects of the land policy on the farm workers, and the project was extended to Malawi in 2002. 
    Agricultural workers face many problems with pesticides. Collective bargaining agreements between management and the unions include provisions for protective wear, but many workers are casual or on contract and not covered by these agreements. Labour inspections are non-existent in countries like in Uganda, and there is a long way to go before waged agricultural workers stop suffering from the effects of pesticides exposure on their health and environment.
    Nevertheless, the level of awareness on the dangers of pesticides among both management staff and workers has increased tremendously as a result of the project. Before the GPP, the plantation management would give workers used pesticides containers for their domestic storage needs as an ‘incentive’. On some plantations, there are now joint union-management Health and Safety Committees. The project has helped initiate joint action on the worst pesticides, and unions have joined in with the International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers, NGOs and others to campaign against the toxic herbicide paraquat. 
   At the local level the unions organise regular basic health, safety and environment education and training programmes at workplaces for grassroots members on farms and plantations. An innovative study circle programme is improving knowledge on health, safety and environment rights. There is a strong emphasis on gender issues and on training women members. Each participating union now has a pesticides and alternatives resource centre at their head office. 
    The GPP unions have taken on actions beyond union duties. These include helping establish Pesticides Action Network Eastern Africa, participation in national planning on chemical safety, involvement in an International Persistent Organic Pollutants Elimination Project, and input to many international initiatives working to reduce pesticide hazards. 
    Agriculture cannot be sustainable when every year there are 170,000 deaths among agricultural workers due to workplace accidents and 40,000 deaths due to pesticide poisoning. The GPP is promoting alternatives to chemical pesticides, and has been training union members and officials in Integrated Pest Management (IPM). This has helped them present arguments on the importance of alternatives to toxic pesticides when they are collectively bargaining on health and safety standards at their workplaces. The GPP integrates with wider issues, as agriculture cannot be sustainable when there is rampant hazardous child labour, poor wages and working conditions, HIV/AIDS, and poverty. Improvements in all these areas will make agriculture more sustainable. 
    In order to sustain the activities, the union is campaigning for ratification and implementation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 184 on Health and Safety in Agriculture, and has developed a Training Manual on Health, Safety and Environment for Agricultural Trade Unions, with assistance from the ILO, available in English, French and Spanish. 
Omara Amuko, IUF Global Health, Safety and Environment Coordinator, Kampala, Uganda.

GPP – future work
With support of the IUF and the Swedish union that now incorporates the SLF, the Kommunal, the GPP will continue to strive for strategies to help reduce the number of poisonings among agricultural workers. In particular the GPP will: 

1. ILO facts on Agriculture, World Summit on Sustainable Development, Key Statistics. Paper presented at the World Summit on Sustainable Agriculture, Johannesburg, Rio + 10.
2. Stakeholders and other collaborating partners contributing to the GPP: CropLife/CropLife Africa, GAPWUZ – General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe, GAWU – Ghana Agricultural Workers Union, Global IPM Facility, ILO – International Labour Organization, IUF, with SLF [incorporated into the Swedish Municipal Workers’ Union (Kommunal) in 2002], KEMI – in particular its ‘Wittulsberg Initiative’ for North-South and South-South collaboration, LO/TCO Biståndsnämnd [Swedish Trade Union Council for International Co-operation], NUCMAWU – National Union of Co-operative Movement and Allied Workers, NUPAWU – National Union of Plantation and Agricultural Workers, Uganda, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Africa, PAN UK, TPAWU – Tanzania Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union

George Ekström is a former pesticide regulator at the Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate. He initiated multistakeholder Swedish collaboration with selected international NGOs and stakeholders in Costa Rica, Tanzania and Vietnam. He promotes pesticide risk reduction based on multistakeholder collaboration in Swedish official development assistance. Email address george_ekstroem@hotmail.com

Sven-Erik Pettersson is a former health and safety representative of the Swedish Farm Workers’ Union. He initiated the Global Pesticide Project, lectured in training sessions and was a spokesman for IUF/GPP on pesticides, agriculture and development. He is now retired. Email address: 3039pettersson@telia.com

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 68, June 2005, pages 17-19]