DDT Threatens Organic Cotton in Africa

In Uganda spraying of the highly controversial insecticide DDT has spoiled organic crops in Uganda. As Ecotextile News states in their report, over 11,000 farmers in Uganda are now stuck with cotton after it was rejected by buyers from the Dutch organic cotton firm BoWeevil due to DDT spraying in the area.

Marc van Esch from BoWeevil, who I met in Uganda last November when I visited organic cotton farms there (see my blog-report), 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.”

In Europe and USA the use of DDT is banned since the sixties, when the book Silent Spring raised awareness on the disastrous environmental and health effects of pesticides. DDT has been banned worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but usage in agriculture and malaria prevention is still a widespread practice in development countries. There are also voices to allow a careful use of DDT to combat epidemic spread of malaria. But meanwhile the use of DDT itself makes mosquitoes more and more resistant.

But who is actually producing and selling this DDT? Chemical companies who might not be too said to ruin the market of organic cotton. Because they are the same companies who have a large interest in selling their pesticides and insecticides on the global market. And who might even be involved in the medical industry, an industry still preventing Africa from getting affordable malaria medicines. What game is actually going on here?

Organic cotton farming in Uganda

In Northern Uganda, in the region around Lira, there is as much as 27 thousand farmers (!!!) growing organic cotton. The farmers are united in a cooperative with chosen representatives. The organic cotton project here is started by and running through the Dutch company BoWeevil. The cotton from the Phenix factory in Kampala which I visited the day before, origins from this project as well. As might do the Edun or M&S clothes you are wearing on this very moment.

I went to see the project and visited some farmers. It was quite a trip from Kampala, it takes about six hours on crazy roads. As I understood, this area has been under control by the cruel guerilla Lord’s Resistance Army until very recently. Now there are peace negotiations, so the area is calmer and the farmers, who lived in refugee camps, are living on their lands again. So until one, two years ago they had to go to their lands with fear and go back to the camps before the evening fell. One could understand that’s not an easy way to work. Okay, no Army anymore, but on the way back our driver refused to stop at the beautiful Nile waterfalls because there was a danger for guerilla bandits.

The farming life looked all quite romantic to me, traditional huts, some chickens running around, people hanging around or working a bit. The farmers have small fields with different crops. They do not make use of irrigation, so depend on the rain seasons that occur a few times per year. Next to cotton they grow sesame, red peppers and vegetables for local consumption. The income from cotton and sesame, which is exported, gives income which the farmers can use to send their children to school or buy medicines from. From the extra income they gain with growing organic, the farmers can afford building small houses instead of huts. This is a development from the last years, and if it continues, traditional huts might disappear pretty fast from the landscape.

This is the ambivalence of development. On the one hand it is a positive achievement for the farmer, having a good roof, a house with a door that you can close of, on the other hand it can be a loss of cultural value. An even stronger ambivalence I felt when visiting the Maasai women project in Kenja. In this project, run by catholic nuns, they make traditional jewelry to be able to send their children to school. As they said, they hope that their children will then be able to give the Maasai a stronger presence in municipalities, politics, and that this will decrease their oppression. But while these children go to school, they will live less tightened to their traditional culture, and if they become successful, they will most likely be westernized.

There is not much enemies of cotton in Uganda, so the need for pesticides is not all that high. Often farmers do not have the money to invest in chemicals either. So the step to become organic is not all to large. What makes a difference, is that the organic farmers are trained in methods to prevent their crops in a natural way. A rather genius but logical invention is to plant red peppers around the cotton. Quite some animals don’t really like peppers so they will stay away. And by using this method, they also produce peppers. Another part of growing organic is using crop rotation. The different crops use the ground different, which keeps the soil fertile, so one does not need artificial fertilizers to pimp up the ground. The crop rotation also results in a more efficient use of the landfill and a higher production. In this way it is also more economic. And off course also the non-organic farmers are very interested to see what their neighbors are doing…

In the end, the social effect of this organic cotton project might be much bigger than the ecological impact. The farmers get a guaranteed price and buy for their cotton, the get training and a organic-bonus of twenty percent. This can mean the difference for sending their children to school or having a proper housing. As they are organized in a cooperative, they are relatively self-organized. In that sense, it is a logical step that the project is becoming fair trade certified now. But also the ecological impact is important, as it supports and conserves a relatively traditional way of farming, and is a good alternative to technolization, GM production and ‘improvements’ with pesticides, often introduced or forced by large corporations, who also try to get more grip in Africa. In this fall, the Ugandese case is an interesting example because the success of the organic production, the support from the Ugandese government and the result might be that the whole North of Uganda will be organic within a few years.

Uganda: the reality of production

After the workshop in Kenya I took a bus from Nairobi to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The trip with Akamba bus took about fifteen hours. It was relatively comfortable, compared to Matatu traveling, where you sit in a small van pressed against each other, but the roads where wobbly, sandy and dusty and one feels quite exhausted after such a trip. On the way I spotted a lot of colorful birds, zebras, antelopes, and apes. After being in wealthy circumstances of hotels, restaurants, and good company, this was quite a difference and I felt arriving in Africa for real!

Kampala roads are much worse than Nairobi roads! And traffic jams are relative if you get used being stuck five hours a day... In Kampala we visited a few projects, in example a designer who makes jewelery and bags from recycled materials (see picture left, she is holding a bag made from recycled plastic), which are produced under a women support program. We also visited the Phenix factory, where they produce fabrics and garments form organic cotton. It was interesting to see, since they work hard to make the factory vertically integrated, one could see the whole process from bringing cotton in to a ready sewn and printed garment in one factory.

Actually it is really worth visiting so many places of production because it gives much more of an insight in the reality of garment production. One of the things I learned on my journey is how complex the matters of fair trade is and also how relative it can look. Complex because it is a whole production chain involved. The cotton can be organic and fair trade, but that doesn't make the final product organic or fair trade. Relative because fair trade, even when certified, is not always visible directly, fair trade does not automatically mean smiling workers (as the marketing of fair trade will make you believe), so it is more in the invisible part (control on labor rights, transparency of the production chain, etc.) that makes the difference.