Cotton farmers in Mali have reduced their use of toxic pesticides and cut costs through an education project carried out by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and partially funded by the European Union.

 

The UN established field schools to train cotton farmers to use alternative forms of pest control, such as “biopesticides”, which led to a 92% decrease in the use of toxic pesticides.

 

The researchers carried out the study on the impact of field schools in two Mali regions - Bla, in the south, and nearby Bougoni, where there was no field school.

 

Only 34% of cotton farmers in the Bla region participated in the programme, suggesting that farmers acted as “catalysts”, spreading the new pest control method themselves by word of mouth or by other means.

 

The use of the biopesticides, such as neem tree extract, meant that the farmers refrained from using an estimated 47,000 litres of synthesised pesticides, saving them nearly half a million dollars over the study period. The biopesticides, which had no negative impacts on yields, therefore proved to be three times more cost-effective than synthetic pesticides.

 

The EU is allocating €2.5 million in funding towards a second phase of the Mali cotton project, in collaboration with the FAO and the International Trade Centre.

 

The Royal Society also published another study showing that some conventional pesticides posed a risk to human health and the environment in West Africa.

 

The study measuring pesticide ecological and health risks found that farm workers and their family, including children, were routinely exposed to high concentrations of pesticides known to be toxic, such as methamidophos and dimethoate.

 

Protective clothing is not frequently used in West Africa and inhabitants and reports of ill health, hospitalization and death due to chemical exposure are not uncommon, the FAO says.