Pesticides still a threat to Yemenis

Yemen Observer: http://www.yobserver.com

Pesticides still a threat to Yemenis

Posted in: Sports, Health & Lifestyle
Written By: Thuria Ghaleb
Article Date: Feb 5, 2008 - 3:57:34 AM

Many pesticides are still smuggled into Yemen, including many that are either dangerous or expired.

Dr. Ali Mohammed Mujawar, the Prime Minister, has declared a savage official war on those traders attempting to bring forbidden, expired or smuggled pesticides into Yemen. “We should fight against those unconscientious traders who destroy our food and our generations’ future,” said Dr. Mujawar in the National Conference of Pesticides on Sunday, January 27.

The conference, held at the University of Sana’a by the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, aimed to develop an effective machinery for exchanging pesticides and decreasing their health and environmental hazards. “Such random use of pesticides has become a serious problem since it badly affects the quality of the different Yemeni agricultural products,” said Dr. Mujawar. “So, we will use our various methods to expose such traders and take decisive legal measures against those people who exploit others’ needs in order to achieve their personal interests.”

The Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation, Dr. Mansour al-Hawshabi, confirmed that his ministry could seize huge quantities of banned pesticides, but added, “Just 1,000 tons of allowed pesticides entered Yemen in 2007 compared to about 3,000 tons officially recorded as entering in 2005.” The ministry now seeks to complete preparing the laboratory which is specialized to analyze pesticides and estimate their residual effects on agricultural products, he said.

The head of the Traders Organization for Agricultural Products, Ahmed al-Aqel, confirmed that the incapacity of the specialized authorities to apply the law is an encouraging factor for people to bring banned pesticides into Yemen. “There are many important factors which encourage the importing and exchanging of such pesticides in the local shops in Yemen,” said al-Aqel. “But, the most important one is the ministry’s incapacity to apply the law and seriously fight against this smuggling phenomenon.”

Al-Aqel also confirmed that about 60 percent of pesticides enter Yemen unofficially, and there are some governmental authorities which facilitate such importation.”Some governmental authorities help traders to bring pesticides into Yemen while they are threatening and warning traders from doing such things through the media,” he said.

The Yemeni government, especially the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, adopts many different procedures to manage the exchanging of pesticides and strengthen the observation of such operations. The General Department for Plant Protection (GDPP), which follows the ministry’s guidelines, has carried out a wide-range inspection campaign involving about 72 pesticide shops and stores in the capital-secretariat during December 2007.

The Plant Protection Department disclosed that about 21 shops were exchanging pesticides without official licenses, while 11 others were engaging in such trade with expired licenses. About 9 shops did not meet the required conditions and specifications. About 40 refills of smuggled pesticides, amounting to YR250,000, were seized in one shop which was then closed by the prosecution. The GDPP also seized other quantities of expired pesticides, 235 liters for every kilogram. About 41 police reports were submitted to the specialized prosecution in the capital-secretariat to initiate legal measures against shop owners according to a 1999 law passed to regulate the handling of pesticides.

“These campaigns will continue to carry out inspections on all pesticide shops in the capital-secretariat and other governorates,” said Abdul-Qawi Abdul-Jaleel, the General Director of the GDPP. “Smuggling pesticides is a current phenomenon in our country, so all public and private efforts should cooperate to fight against such a serious problem. The ministry [alone] cannot stop the smuggling of pesticides and catch the smugglers,” he said. “But, it can periodically undertake inspection campaigns to seize the smuggled pesticides in cooperation with the general prosecution to close such shops.”

Pesticides can wreak all sorts of havoc on human and animal health. About 17,000 Yemeni people are diagnosed with cancer each year, said Dr. Nadeem Mohammed Saeed, the director of the National Oncology Center. “It is often caused by smuggled and banned pesticides used in growing qat, vegetables and fruits,” said Dr. Saeed.

Many pesticides have a poisonous effect on people. Using such pesticides for long periods can cause serious diseases. About 30 percent of cancer patients have mouth and gum cancer resulting from the use of such pesticides in agriculture, said Saeed. This is one of the highest rates of this type of cancer in the world.

“The thing which really worries me is that 70 percent of pesticides used in planting and growing qat are illegal and smuggled into the country,” said Ahmed al-Haddad, the head of Community Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science at Sana’a University. The consumption of these pesticides is one of the major causes of stomach cancer and renal failure.

“Everybody in Yemen has probably been contaminated with some small amount of the illegal pesticides. Yemeni children, the young and the old, even pregnant women cannot avoid the damage caused by these things,” said Abdullah Obadi, a representative of the Yemen Society for Consumer Protection. Many studies conducted in Yemen warn of the huge and random quantities of illegal pesticides used in growing different plants in the country.

According to Abdul-Jaleel, the GDPP issued a list in 2007 of the pesticides which are forbidden in Yemen. The list included 349 kinds of dangerous pesticides, about 79 of these which were used in Yemen before the issuance of such a list. The list was prepared according to international standards. “As a result of using such a list, we could decrease the number of different pesticides used in Yemen from 1024 to 200,” said Abdul-Jaleel. “We will try to decrease the number of pesticides used in 2008 [even further] and limit them to those kinds which do not pose any harm to people, plants, animals or the environment.”

According to the World Health Organization, about 22,000 Yemenis are annually diagnosed with cancer and about 60 percent of this number dies from the disease. This means that 12,000 people afflicted with the disease die every year. The WHO also shows that just 25 to 30 percent of those people could be treated, with only 10 to 15 percent of those treated people able to live more than one year.

Pesticides also badly affect the Yemeni economy, according to Dr. Abdul-Rahman Thabet, who is a professor at Sana’a University. In a field study, he showed that Yemen spent more than YR700 billion to import just two kinds of forbidden pesticides used for growing qat trees during the period of just four years. Dr. Thabet also showed that 90 percent of the total imported pesticides in Yemen are used for growing qat.