Poison by Proxy: Europe’s Banned Pesticides, Africa’s Burden, and the Agroecological Path Forward.A global double standard with Local Consequences.

A farmer in Wakiso district spraying his lettuce with insecticide. Photo: African Newsletter

Europe bans hazardous pesticides to protect its citizens. Yet the same chemicals are exported to African countries like Uganda, where farmers apply them with minimal protection, in unlabelled containers, and without legal recourse. This is not a regulatory gap. It is a business model, and one of the most consequential double standards in the global agricultural system.

A landmark Swedwatch report, Poison for Profit, documents the human and environmental costs in granular detail. Farmers are poisoned in fields where chemicals banned in their countries of manufacture are sprayed without protective equipment. Communities face contaminated water and degraded soils. Livelihoods erode, not only through health costs, but through export rejections when African produce fails residue standards set by the very markets that exported these chemicals southward.

The Scale of the Crisis in Uganda

Uganda is not an abstract case. Approximately 51–59% of the 41 Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) registered for use in Uganda are currently banned in the European Union (US EPA; Uganda Observer, 2026). Despite this, they remain on Ugandan shelves and in Ugandan fields.

In January 2025, ESAFF Uganda co-signed a joint statement with nine civil society organisations calling for immediate government action. Scientific evidence has also found HHP contamination in human biological samples - urine, blood, breast milk, and sweat. Children inhale twice the pesticide dosage of adults relative to body weight. This is not an environmental concern. It is a public health emergency.

“Uganda, like many African countries, is part of the EU-AU Partnership, yet a significant share of banned and highly hazardous agrochemicals used on Ugandan farms originates from Europe.” — Hakim Baliraine, National Chairperson, ESAFF- Uganda.

 The East African Dimension: Why Fragmented Action Is Not Enough.

The challenge does not stop at Uganda’s borders. Across the East African Community (EAC), HHP discussions have intensified — but a critical question remains: what happens when some countries ban HHPs while others do not?

Lake Victoria, the Nile tributaries, river systems, and atmospheric flows do not respect national boundaries. Neither do the supply chains that move food and pesticide residues across borders daily. Continued HHP use in one country directly compromises the health and food safety of its neighbours. A unified EAC regulatory framework is not a diplomatic aspiration — it is a public health necessity.

“Government, being a signatory to the Bamako Convention, must look at the highly hazardous molecules in this country, and they must be banned. Molecules banned elsewhere must also be banned across Africa.” — Benard Bwambale, Coordinator, Food Safety Coalition of Uganda.

Given the above laid context, ESAFF Uganda and its partners’ call goes beyond national efforts to the East African Community level advocacy. The goal is a harmonised legal and regulatory framework across the EAC, one that ensures consistency, strengthens enforcement, closes the regulatory loopholes that allow HHPs to circulate freely, and enhances the region’s collective bargaining power.

The Alternative Exists: Making the Case for Agroecological Crop Protection.

Agrochemical industry actors claim HHPs are indispensable for productivity and food security . This narrative is contradicted by what is already happening on the ground. Agroecological crop protection is not theoretical. It is being practised today by small-scale farmers across Uganda.

In ESAFF Uganda’s 37 Community Agroecology Schools (CAS), farmers have shifted to:

1. Botanical pesticides; neem, chilli, and garlic extracts that are safe, locally available, and near zero-cost.

2. Fermented organic inputs; locally produced fertilisers and crop protectors using cow dung, molasses, wood ash, and microorganisms.

3. Human Urine as a dual- purpose input; Human Pee as liquid Gold , a nutrient-rich, universally available, zero-cost alternative to synthetic fertilisers that also functions as a deterrent to certain pests.

4. Intercropping and companion planting; marigolds, basil, and tephrosia to reduce pest pressure while building biodiversity.

5. Compost and soil health management; healthy soils are the first and most powerful line of pest defence.

   
   

"In this community, members are no longer worried about pest and disease attacks. The knowledge we got enabled us to produce and use organic pesticides in our gardens. People are admiring what we are doing, and they end up joining the school.” — Justine Arinaitwe, CAS Facilitator, Kasese

Since adopting these practices, CAS members report reduced pest pressure, improved soil health, dramatically lower input costs, and produce that is safe to eat and export. The question is not whether agroecological protection works. The question is whether governments and funders will allow it to scale.

ESAFF Uganda’s Response: Transforming Agroecology from the Ground Up.

ESAFF Uganda has not waited for governments to act. Over a decade, the organisation has built the movement infrastructure for Uganda’s agroecological transition through five interconnected initiatives:

•     37 Community Agroecology Schools; living, farmer-led learning hubs producing organic pesticides and fertilisers in real conditions.

•     The Agroecology School for Journalists and Communicators; Africa’s first such programme, training media professionals to counter agrochemical misinformation.

•     The National Agroecology Festival and National Organic Week; annual platforms shifting public understanding of sustainable agriculture.

•     Agroecology Clubs in Schools; student-led plots spreading agroecological practices from schools to family farms across multiple districts.

•     The ECOTOPIA Programme, a community-owned initiative in Mayuge and Kumi scaling agroecology through farmer-led research and policy advocacy, supported by DKA Austria and Horizont3000.

Call to Action.

The evidence is available and clear. The alternatives exist. The advocacy is gaining momentum. What remains is political will, from the government of Uganda, the East African community, the European Union, and the international community. ESAFF Uganda and its partners have articulated a clear and specific agenda for action:

• The EU must stop exporting banned pesticides to Africa. The European Union cannot credibly claim global leadership on sustainability while its companies profit from selling to African markets chemicals that are too dangerous to use in Europe. The EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy and its own pesticide regulations must be extended to prohibit the export of banned substances. This is not a request. It is a moral and legal imperative.

• Uganda must accelerate the phase-out of HHPs. The Government of Uganda must operationalise the precautionary principle in pesticide registration and importation decisions, progressively banning substances classified internationally as Highly Hazardous. Uganda’s obligations under the Bamako Convention provide the legal basis for this action today.

• The EAC must harmonise its regulatory framework. Isolated national action is insufficient against transboundary risks. A unified EAC approach to HHP regulation would ensure consistency, strengthen enforcement, close loopholes, and protect shared ecosystems from the Lake Victoria basin to the Nile tributaries.

• Governments must invest in agroecological alternatives. Replacing HHPs requires not only banning chemicals but investing in the knowledge systems, infrastructure, and markets that make organic and agroecological crop protection viable at scale. Uganda’s National Agroecology Strategy must be fast-tracked and adequately resourced.

• Smallholder farmers must be placed at the centre of the transition. The shift away from HHPs must be designed with and for the farmers who are currently most dependent on and most harmed by these chemicals. Extension services, training programmes, and input subsidy schemes must be reoriented towards agroecological alternatives. ESAFF Uganda’s Community Agroecology Schools offer a proven, scalable model.

• Investment in organic crop protection must be treated as an economic strategy. Strengthening locally produced organic inputs protects Uganda’s export revenues, as the country lost over USD 60 million in a single year to residue violations. It reduces import dependence. It supports the Build Uganda Buy Uganda agenda. And it builds a green agricultural enterprise sector that can generate employment and income for the next generation of rural Ugandans.

In conclusion, in the fields of Apac, in the vegetable gardens of Mukono, in the school plots of Kasese, and in the 37 Community Agroecology Schools established by ESAFF Uganda across the country, Ugandan farmers are already demonstrating that the future does not have to be poisoned. They are growing food without chemicals, which are banned in the countries that send those chemicals to the global south. They are building soil health rather than depleting it. They are keeping their families safe, their water clean, and their harvests exportable.

The movement for the phase-out of Highly Hazardous Pesticides is not a movement against agriculture. It is a movement for sustainable agriculture, a food system that serves farmers rather than pharmaceutical corporations, that protects public health rather than sacrificing it, and that builds long-term resilience rather than short-term yield at the cost of soil, water, and human life.