CS Kagwe Urges COMESA to Enforce Unified Pesticide Ban for Food Safety

In Summary

• Agriculture CS Mutahi Kagwe calls for a unified ban on hazardous pesticides across COMESA’s 21 member states.
• Inconsistent regulations allow banned pesticides in some countries, threatening food safety and trade.
• Kenya banned 77 pesticides in June 2025, with 202 restricted and 151 under review.
• Kagwe proposes harmonized chemical standards, joint vaccine development, and digital tools.
• Challenges include enforcement gaps, cartel resistance, and lack of alternatives for farmers.
• COMESA urged to act decisively to protect farmers, consumers, and regional markets.

Kenya’s Agriculture and Livestock Development Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has called for a unified ban on hazardous pesticides across the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) bloc to safeguard food safety, public health, and regional agricultural trade.

Speaking at the 9th Joint COMESA Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Environment in Lusaka, Zambia, on August 8, 2025, Kagwe warned that inconsistent regulations—where pesticides banned in one country are used in neighboring states—undermine collective Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) efforts and expose farmers and consumers to significant risks.

“The current situation where a pesticide banned in one country continues to be used next door completely undermines our collective SPS efforts. We are exposing our farmers, our consumers, and our markets to unnecessary and unacceptable risk,” Kagwe said, highlighting how regulatory loopholes enable rogue traders to exploit enforcement gaps, leading to contaminated produce and eroding trust in regional food systems.

Kenya, which banned 77 harmful pesticides in June 2025, including DDT, chlordane, and chlorpyrifos, after a Pest Control Products Board (PCPB) review of 430 products, urged COMESA’s 21 member states—Burundi, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe—to adopt similar measures.

Kagwe emphasized that harmonizing chemical safety standards is critical to protect the bloc’s agricultural markets, which support millions, including Kenya’s tea sector (KSh 215 billion in 2024 exports) and Zambia’s maize surplus. He cited Kenya’s progress with fertiliser subsidies, irrigation expansion, and the Kenya Integrated Agricultural Management Information System (KIAMIS), adapted from Zambia’s ZIAMIS, as examples of successful cross-border innovation.

Kenya also proposed joint livestock vaccine development, certified seed trade protocols, and digital tools to enhance agricultural planning, prioritizing youth involvement, with over 75% of Kenya’s population under 35.

Challenges include resistance from pesticide cartels, which Kagwe previously accused of bribery and media manipulation to undermine reforms, as noted during a June 2025 CABI meeting. Farmers face high costs transitioning to safer alternatives like integrated pest management (IPM), with only 20% of African farmers using improved inputs, per AGRA.

Kagwe called for coordinated surveillance to curb counterfeit seeds and stronger SPS enforcement, urging COMESA to move beyond rhetoric. “COMESA is not a talk show; it is a development mechanism,” he said.

The proposal aligns with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and Kampala Declaration, but without decisive action, Kagwe warned, COMESA’s food security goals will falter.

COMESA ministers are expected to draft a regional roadmap by mid-2026, with Kenya pledging support for reforms to transform the bloc into an engine for agricultural resilience.