HomeNews Kenyans still using cancer-causing weed-killers

Agricultural experts have raised the red flag over the increased use of carcinogenic herbicides.

The agronomists and marketing agents are concerned that the use of the weed-killers will limit farmers from accessing international markets for such cash crops as coffee and tea, thus denying the country foreign exchange.

They said 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and Monsanto’s Roundup that are used to eliminate weeds in coffee, tea and sugarcane, among other crops, are harmful to human health.

Mr Kamau Kuria, the Coffee Management Services mills managing director raised the alarm, saying, the herbicides were associated with “life-threatening diseases like cancer.”

The United States of America (USA), Germany, Japan and Switzerland are some of the countries that have warned against importation of crops from places in which such banned herbicides have been used to control weeds.

He said was vital for farmers to use herbicides approved by the Pest Control Products Board, “and where necessary, take soil samples to the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (Kephis) to determine whether it has been contaminated by the herbicides,” Mr Kuria said.

The classification of the weed-killer was made by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

The agency said that it reviewed the latest scientific literature and decided to classify 2,4-D as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”, a step below the more definitive “probably carcinogenic” category, but two steps above the “probably not carcinogenic” category.

IARC’s findings on 2,4-D have been awaited by environmental and consumer groups that are lobbying US regulators to tightly restrict the use of 2,4-D.

IARC explained that it decided on the “possibly” classification because there was “inadequate evidence in humans and limited evidence in experimental animals” of ties between 2,4-D and cancer.