How the US agrochemical lobby is meddling in the future of Kenyan farming

This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian.

By Anthony Langat, Margot Gibbs, Cynthia Gichiri and Elena DeBre

Kenya has responded to rising food prices and climate shocks with a drive for intensive farming, but environmentalists warn that weak pesticide regulation and pressure from the US agrochemical lobby are putting the health of farmers and the wider public at risk.

President William Ruto has said that Kenya needs to become agriculturally self-reliant to save millions of dollars in food imports, and has backed this goal with a farmer-support programme he says is aimed at “putting the shame of hunger behind us once and for all”.

More than 75% of the agrochemicals used in Kenya in 2020 – the latest figures publicly available – are categorised as Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs), which means they pose serious health risks to humans and the environment, according to the Route to Food, an initiative that promotes food security in Kenya.

Among those HHPs is paraquat, manufactured by the Swiss-based agro-technology giant Syngenta, which has increasingly been linked to Parkinson’s disease – an incurable degenerative brain disorder. Banned in the EU, paraquat remains legally available in Kenya.

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