As Zambia charts its course on environmental policy in response to global commitments, among the targets the government has set for itself is one that should concern every Zambian who eats food, drinks water, or plans to have children. While Zambia’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) includes a commitment to reduce the use of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) by 70% within a decade, what the strategy does not say is that nobody knows exactly which pesticides are being used, where they are coming from, or how many people are getting sick from them.
And that is becoming a problem we can no longer ignore.
You might be wondering: what exactly are HHPs? Highly Hazardous Pesticides are a specific category defined by international bodies like the FAO and WHO based on four main criteria – high acute toxicity (meaning they can kill or seriously harm you from a single exposure), chronic toxicity (long term poisoning which can cause causing cancer, reproductive harm, or hormone disruption), environmental persistence (they stay active once they are released in the environment), or severe risk even when used correctly.
The European Union (EU) has banned or restricted many HHPs for these reasons. It is, however, important to note that there are many other pesticides with proven harmful effects, but have not been classified as highly hazardous. Glyphosate, for example, the active ingredient in Roundup and a proven carcinogen (cancer causing) according to the WHO’s cancer agency, is not on most HHP lists because it has lower acute toxicity, meaning you won’t collapse after one spray – but has potentially severe long term effects. The HHP classification system focuses heavily on immediate danger and certain specific long-term effects like endocrine disruption, but it does not automatically capture every chemical that later turns out to cause cancer – like glyphosate..
Nonetheless, there is some good news! Global pressure against HHPs has been mounting for some time. Two years ago in Bonn, countries agreed to phase out the most dangerous agricultural chemicals by 2035, while the European Union’s Green Deal requires trading partners to slash pesticide use by half; and regional bodies like SADC are working on their own phase-out plans. African governments recently launched a global alliance specifically targeting these chemicals, meaning that Zambia, having signed nearly every relevant international convention, now must hold itself to its commitments.
But the pressure shouldn’t be coming from Geneva or Brussels. It should be coming from fields across Zambia, where farmers apply pesticides daily even before shoots emerge until days before harvest. It should be coming from the clinics treating patients with unexplained headaches, dizziness, breathing difficulties, cancers, hormonal imbalances and type-2 diabetes; from parents who do not know that the containers their children use to fetch water once held chemicals banned in Europe for causing cancer and harming brain development, and from consumers who need to know whether the tomato they bought from Soweto still has residues of Mancozeb (a chemical widely used in tomato production but banned in Europe for its effects on the human reproductive system).
The scale of the problem is staggering when you look at the numbers. A 2016 list of registered products showed 238 pesticides in use, made from roughly 93 active ingredients, and of those, between 35 and 40 qualify as highly hazardous by international standards. Twenty are banned outright in the European Union, while a dozen more fall under international conventions requiring prior consent for trade. And these are not minor infractions but chemicals so dangerous that most wealthy countries have simply decided they are not worth the risk. Yet in Zambia, they are sold cheaply over the counter, often without adequate labelling or information on how they can be used safely.
Studies show that smallholder farmers make up to ten pesticide applications per season, with many spraying preventively before any pests appear. Vegetable gardening, concentrated in the dry season when most households depend on market produce, sees the heaviest use, meaning that tomatoes, cabbage, rape and others – the everyday vegetables on Zambian tables – are drenched in chemicals that most Zambians cannot name and do not even know they exist, some of which are highly hazardous. The ignorance is not the farmers’ or consumers’ fault, of course. Pesticide labels, where they exist, mean little to someone who cannot read English or does not know that skull-and-crossbones symbols have specific meanings. And agro-dealers, who serve as the primary source of advice, are largely unregulated and their employees poorly trained, with some giving dangerously incorrect recommendations while others sell whatever is cheapest or most readily available.
What happens after application is even worse, if you can imagine it. Some farmers reuse pesticide containers for storing food, water, and even traditional beer, while others burn them, bury them, or dump them in streams. Full protective clothing is hardly used, and the reason is simple: smallholder farmers cannot afford it! But the consequences are predictable. Health workers report that pesticide poisoning cases are common, and farmers often describe headaches, skin itching, dizziness, eye irritations, and difficulty breathing, symptoms many have learned to accept as normal and just another part of farming life.
The long-term picture is frightening. Chronic exposure to these chemicals has been linked to neurological disorders, hormonal imbalances, reproductive health problems, and certain cancers. Children are especially vulnerable, as their developing brains and bodies absorb and react to toxins differently than adults. So when we talk about pesticides and our children, we are not being alarmist but describing a public health crisis that has not yet been properly measured. Nobody is keeping count.
And here is the strange thing about Zambia’s pesticide problem: the information needed to solve it already exists; it simply hasn’t been made public yet. For example, between 2018 and 2022, the Swedish Chemicals Agency worked with the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) on a major capacity-building programme, training officials, developing a database of registered chemicals, and creating a list of HHPs currently in use. That work has been completed, yet the database remains unpublished. The list remains internal, meaning that farmers, agro-dealers, and the general public have no way of knowing which products can be avoided where alternatives exist, which are restricted, and which are so dangerous they should never be used.
That is why, this month, we launched the #NoToPoisonsInFood campaign alongside a knowledge blitz to help change this dynamic. Zambia has the laws it needs to protect its people, from the Environmental Management Act to licensing regulations and occupational health and safety provisions, all there on paper looking impressive. What is missing is implementation, and the simple, unglamorous work of telling people what they are dealing with and giving them the tools to make different choices.
Through the No to Poisons in Food campaign, we want Zambians to at least know what they are up against – that is always the first step to fighting back. Join us, and add your voice to the conversation using #NoToPoisonsInFood and #MyFoodIsZambian.