Kenyan farmers spent Sh10.6 million on the purchase of pesticide products to control insects, diseases, and weeds in 2020.
According to a report conducted by Heinrich Boll Stiftung, these farmers spent Sh4.11 million($28.2 million) on insecticides, Sh3.85million($26.4 million) on herbicides and Sh2.64 million ($18.1 million) on fungicides.
The report titled, 'Toxic Business: Highly Hazardous Pesticides in Kenya' revealed that during that period, Kenya farmers used a total of 310 pesticide products containing 151 active ingredients.
“They applied a total volume of 3,068 tonnes of pesticide products to control insects, diseases, and weeds on 26 different crops,” the report states.
The report further revealed that out of the 310 pesticide products used, 195 products (63 per cent) containing one or two active ingredients that are categorised as HHPs, accounting for 76 per cent of the total volume of pesticides used.
"This indicates that farmers in Kenya predominantly use Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs), despite their known detrimental effects on human health and the environment," the report states.
“Notably, almost half (44 per cent) of the total volume of pesticides used in Kenya are already banned in Europe due to their unacceptable risk to human health and the environment,” it added.
According to the report, the top five widely used insecticides in Kenya are Marshal, Thunder, Belt, Occasion-Star, and Dursban.
“Insecticidal products are generally applied in lower volumes due to their higher toxicity. Among them, Dursban , which is banned in Europe, has the highest volume,” the report noted.
Report findings show that the highly hazardous insecticides cover an area of 635,350 hectares, which accounts for 21 percent of the total pesticide-treated area.
The most heavily applied herbicides include Kalach, Touchdown Forte, Dryweed, Roundup Turbo, Herbstar, Gramoxone, Lumax, HY-2.4-D, 2.4-D-Max, and Agromine.
Paraquat and 2.4 D-amine are both banned in Europe.
The most widely used fungicides are Ridomil-Gold, Nordox-Super , and Milthane.
However, official data on national pesticide use is not publicly available.
The report also revealed that a total of 73 different companies serve as brand owners for the products used in Kenya.
“Syngenta leads the pesticides market with a 20 percent market share, followed by Bayer AG with 15 percent and Corteva Agriscience with 7.7 percent.
"Others are FMC Corporation with 5.7 percent, and Adama Agricultural Solutions with 4.4 percent,” the report added.
Syngenta, headquartered in Switzerland, sells 40 products with the highest volume of pesticides in Kenya (544 t), of which 68% are HHPs.