Ugandan farm exporters condemn DDT approval
Source: Reuters
(Adds details, quotes) By Tim Cocks KAMPALA, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Ugandan exporters fear a government decision to use DDT to fight malaria could seriously hurt the $30 billion market in farm products to the European Union where the pesticide is banned, local press said on Friday. The government approved the controlled spraying of DDT inside homes on Tuesday as part of a campaign to rid Uganda of the malaria-carrying mosquito, which kills an estimated one million people annually, most of them children in Africa. Exporters in Uganda, Africa's second biggest coffee producer and a tea and fresh flower exporter, were worried the EU would start tough screening measures. "We are scared because it will affect our exports to Europe if DDT residues are detected in agricultural products," the paper quoted the head of the Uganda Flower Exporters Association Jacques Schrier as saying. But the coffee board said the impact of DDT might not be too negative if the government does not to use it in places where it could contaminate cash crops. "Hopefully they won't do it in areas where exports are -- for instance where coffee is stored. Then we wouldn't have a problem with it," Fred Luzinda, secretary of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, told Reuters. The World Health Organisation (WHO) approved the use of DDT to fight malaria last September, 30 years after phasing it out. Several European countries and the United States banned DDT in the 1970s after environmental groups argued it caused cancer and birth defects and was extremely harmful to wildlife. Uganda says it will follow WHO guidelines -- using a type of pesticide that sticks to walls to reduce the risk of contamination. Officials at the EU delegation to Uganda said they could not comment but in a statement on its Web site posted last November, the delegation said it "recognises DDT as a potentially toxic substance to humans and the environment". But it added that a global ban was unlikely. Uganda, which sells an annual $30 billion of agricultural products to EU markets, has previously suffered after Europe temporarily slapped a ban on its fish due to safety concerns. In 1999, the EU banned imports of fish from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania following reports that fishermen in Lake Victoria were using toxins to boost their catch, hurting what was for Uganda a $80 million annual trade employing 700,000 people. The ban was lifted 10 months later.
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