KAMPALA – [05.07.08] The use of the controversial insecticide DDT to combat malaria in East Africa has highlighted the problems faced by growers of organic cotton in countries like Uganda where spraying the pesticide has spoiled organic crops.

Over 11,000 farmers in Apac and Oyam districts of Uganda are now stuck with cotton after it was rejected by buyers from the Dutch firm BoWeevil due to DDT spraying in the area.

Marck Van Esch, the managing director of BoWeevil, told local press, “DDT is a problem in any food commodity to the Western world. There is a zero tolerance there for DDT products,” he said. BoWeevil promotes and certifies organic cotton through agricultural projects in places like Turkey and Uganda where its Ugandan organic cotton is certified by Ecocert International and complies with the stringent NOP certification so it can exported to the USA.

Government officials started DDT spraying in the Oyam and Apac districts of Uganda in April, but were recently halted by the Kampala High Court after a petition, filed by nine groups of produce farmers, traders and conservationists. Van Esch said if the Ministry of Health continues spraying DDT where they have their programmes, they will close down their businesses and industries. “Many export commodities will not be able to find Western markets any more. The consequences will be enormous and disastrous,” he told All Africa. “Although we think that there are better alternatives than DDT. Eventually more people will die of poverty.”

The use of the DDT has been highly controversial ever since Rachel Carson published her seminal book ‘Silent Spring’ in 1962, which catalogued the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT in the USA. DDT was subsequently banned for agricultural use worldwide, but its limited use in disease control continues to this day in certain parts of the world and remains controversial.

In the Oyam district of Uganda the use of DDT has reduced the cases of malaria in the district, the chief administrative officer, Katherine Amal, who told local news agencies that [in the area] malaria accounted for 28.3% of the deaths, followed by malnutrition (17%) and intestinal worms (17.3%).

The use of DDT has now affected cotton prices in the region. Patrick Oryang from Lango Cooperative told All Africa, “We are buying cotton at sh500 per kilogram instead of sh750. The country will lose about US$20 million because EUREP-GAP, an EU exporters body, has suspended buying products from the region because the consumers in Europe and America want purely organic products.”

The many other organic cotton projects in other regions of Uganda remain unaffected.