Editorial: Mitigating pesticide risks: current practices and regulatory gaps in food safety

Résumé

classification of chemicals according to their chronic health hazards and environmental hazards. Further there are other guidelines and tools on the FAO webpages on pest and pesticide management. These include the FAO/WHO Guidelines for the Registration of Pesticides (2010), the FAO/WHO Guidelines on developing a reporting system for health and environmental incidents resulting from exposure to pesticides (2009), the FAO/WHO Guidelines on pesticide legislation (2015) and the FAO Pesticide Registration Toolkit, which provides guidance on risk assessment. The FAO/WHO International Code of Conduct on Pesticide Management (2013) defines Highly Hazardous Pesticides as "Pesticides that are acknowledged to present particularly high levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or environment according to internationally accepted classification systems such as the World Health Organization (WHO) or the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) or their listing in relevant binding international agreements or conventions. In addition, pesticides that appear to cause severe or irreversible harm to health or the environment under conditions of use in a country may be considered to be and treated as highly hazardous".Research across different regions reported in this special issue highlights significant gaps between recommended safety protocols and actual field practices. In Trinidad and Jamaica, studies reveal a high incidence of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning with almost one half of farmers reporting symptoms within a 12-month period [ 7 ]. Common symptoms include skin irritation, severe headaches, and respiratory distress associated with highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) like paraquat and lambda-cyhalothrin. In Northern Nigeria, only one third of tomato farmers reported wearing protective equipment during pesticide application, and almost half harvested crops within 1-5 days of spraying, contrary to the recommended 7-day pre-harvest interval [ 8 ]. Across multiple studies, personal protective equipment is often inadequately maintained or rejected due to tropical heat. Consequently, the mere use of PPE does not always significantly reduce the likelihood of pesticide exposure [ 9 ]. Over the years, pesticides have been shown to cause serious human poisoning and a major public health problem going as far as 1990s, when a task force of the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about one million unintentional pesticides poisonings with severe manifestations occur annually, leading to approximately 20,000 deaths [ 10 , 11 ]. For many years, pests and diseases management has been a challenge for farmers contributing a lot of economic losses [ 12 ]. For instance, in 2017, 40 percent of farms were reported to be infested by fall army worms (World Vision International, 2017). However, there is still an increasing trend in use of harmful pesticides and according to FAO [ 13 ], pesticides use increased during the period 2000-2019 by 36 percent, to 4.2 million tons in 2019 worldwide. The growth of the industry has been attributed to factors such as improved agricultural inputs like new and improved pesticides, fertilizers, technology, soil upgrading among other factors. These visible great strides in development of the agricultural sector are still tainted with challenges experienced in the region such as climate change, pest and disease management, pesticides usage, land use management, sustainable policies, and they are a hindrance in ensuring sustainability and productivity of the sector. Pest and disease management has for years been a challenge to farmers. Crops such as tomatoes, snap beans, experience severe infestation of pests and diseases, leading to dependence and uncontrollable use of synthetic pesticides.Rampant increase and diversification of synthetic pesticides pose health, environmental, and livelihood risks especially to smallholder farmers who dominate agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. After the Stockholm Convention which is an international treaty that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants, most of these chemicals were banned by countries who signed the treaty in 2001. The misuse and abuse of pesticides may lead to accumulation of residues in the soil resulting to environmental pollution with severe harmful effects to humans [ 4,5 ]. With relation to consumer level, exposure to pesticide residues through food is a major food safety issue and health concern globally due to possible related acute (such as diarrhea and allergy) and chronic (such as cancer, teratogenesis, reproductive toxicity and damage of the nervous system) negative effects on human health [ 14 ]. Consequently, several acute symptoms of pesticide poisonings among farmers have been reported in Low-and Middleincome (LMICs) countries after pesticide spraying with various global estimates on incidence of pesticide poisonings have been reported from 3,000,000 hospitalized acute pesticide poisonings, 25,000,000 less severe poisonings to nearly 300,000 deaths from pesticide poisoning per year [ 15 , 16 ]. Pesticides are the most common cause of self-harm in LMICs leading to most of the deadly pesticide poisonings with farmers and spray men being most at risk of less serious acute and chronic poisonings, while children suffering from the more serious accidental poisonings [ 9 ].Legal mechanisms for regulating pesticides, although important, have not fully addressed the dangers of ecological services disruptions due to accumulation of different pesticides over time. Legal mechanisms also are not well suited to most countries because of weak monitoring and enforcement capacity [ 17 ]. The adoption and uptake of biopesticides and agroecological alternatives by farmers remains relatively limited around the country and reasons for this include a lack of political, financial and technical support and training, lack of investment in research and policy support, and strong marketing by the pesticide industry [ 18 ]. Further, this has been attributed to the limited market potential of African small-scale producers among other challenges in the agricultural sector. Globally, many regulatory agencies especially in the EU have continued to give alerts on regulations that provide guidance on measures imposed on crops that exceed maximum residue levels (MRLs). The regulations for MRLs requires that food meant for human consumption should not contain banned or higher amounts of agrochemical pesticide residues [ 19 ]. Recently, the European Union (EU) plans to raise the MRLs for copper compounds on a wide range of products from April 2026 (Commission Regulation amending Annexes II and III to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards maximum residue levels for copper compounds in or on certain products). The changes are based on updated scientific assessments by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA 2025), which reviewed all sources of exposure and considered both authorized uses of copper as a pesticide and the widespread natural presence of copper in soil and water.Various integrated management approaches have been proposed but with limited adoption by farmers. Also, the use of biopesticides have been seen as an ideal alternative to synthetic pesticides as they ensure sustainable agriculture and conservation of biodiversity. However, the uptake by farmers is still low due to lack of awareness. Promotion of organic agriculture has also been done. Some of the recommended steps in pesticide risk reduction include reduction in reliance on pesticides by determining to what extent current levels of pesticide use are actually needed and eliminate unjustified pesticide use and making optimum use of non-chemical pest management practices in the context of sustainable intensification of crop production and integrated vector management. Secondly, selecting pesticides with the lowest risk and if use of pesticides is considered necessary, selecting products with the lowest risk to human health and the environment from the available registered products of those that are effective against the pest or disease. Thirdly, by ensuring proper use of the selected products for approved applications and in compliance with national regulations and international standards.The articles in this special issue aim to raise awareness of potential harmful effect to consumer health due to exposure to these pesticide residues and propose approaches for improved management that are locally implementable. Evidence from China suggests that the presence of fixed collection points in villages nearly doubles the likelihood of farmers participating in sustainable recycling [ 20 ]. To improve control of harmful pesticides and contribute to reduction of health risks through best practices regarding pesticide use by developing a risk-based roadmap for making decisions and allocating resources that can be used to strengthen the regulation and control harmful pesticide use in counties especially LMIC; and providing supporting scientific evidence for a risk-based approach for policy makers to make informed policy decisions, it is necessary to establish partnership across stakeholder groups and bridge the gaps between policy and practice. In this special issue, researchers describe multi-stakeholder partnerships and governance models. In Kenya, the Micro Enterprises Support Program Trust (MESPT) has successfully built capacity in county governments to establish food safety coordination committees. These committees integrate national standards with local surveillance to monitor Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) [ 21 ]. Through a combination of novel solutions, improved infrastructure, stronger regulatory frameworks, and partnerships, the global agricultural system can mitigate the profound risks associated with chemical pesticides and secure a safer food future. This special issue contributes to the growing body of knowledge aimed at strengthening food safety in relation to pesticide use. 20 Zhou Y and Rao F (2025) Sowing the seeds of sustainability: a deep dive into farmers' recycling practices of pesticide packaging waste in China. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 9:1453656. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1453656 21 Akidiva A, Nyangori G, Kinoti D and Amukhoye R (2024) Partnerships for improved food safety: MESPT's engagements in elective pesticides governance and management in selected counties in Kenya. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 8:1454379. doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1454379

Citer ce document

Accès au document

Texte intégral en lecture en ligne, réservé aux abonnés SPHAERO et aux membres de l'institution. Se connecter

Auteur(s)

Statistiques

Consultations : 1

Téléchargements : 0