In the early months of 2016, a series of brilliant articles by l’express, signed by Marie-Annick Savripène, Lindsay Prosper and Philippe Forget, highlighted a cancer that was slowly eating the soul of sustainable agriculture in Mauritius and decidedly destroying the health of everyday Mauritians, like a silent killer, a terrorist without care for children, women, old or young people, rich or poor. Pesticides in food stuff does not know color, creed or class. The excellent investigative articles spaced out over a few days during the month of January 2016 at first sounded to me like a great flash in the pan, but actually turned out to be courageous, daunting, innovative pieces of investigative journalism. Important sums of money were spent out of their own pockets on collecting samples from local vegetables and imported food items to carry out expensive analytical tests.

The data was truly mind‐numbing to me, although any researcher will tell you that this was ‘data in time’, that historically forward and backward trending would have been necessary, that statistically, we could have taken samples over a much wider geographical range in the country, and also tried to link it more rigorously to emerging cancer data in the country. I give the journalists their full well deserved dues, they were in fact not doing an academic thesis, they were simply raising the alarm on a problem that tou bon dimounn koné, personn pa lé kozé.

Unfortunately, this problem fell on big deaf ears it seems, and as is common in Mauritius, there seems to be apparently other more pressing political matters to be discussed in the press.

Like who is showing his arse to who in Parliament. I would like to recap the essence of the work by Marie-Annick Savripène, Lindsay Prosper and Philippe Forget. However, before I do this, I need to push forward a disclaimer, I am not at all the arrogant returnee from the US, that is writing this to make cynical fun of the dismal state of sustainable agriculture in Mauritius. I really genuinely see a perfect storm coming, alas, without much storm planning being done. Other countries have possibly worst situations, and often these ‘other’ countries could also be the so called ‘super powers of the world’. The recent debates of lead poisoning in the drinking water in Flint, Michigan, points to a key factor that often keeps fueling the issues of regional pollution to basic amenities or food suppliers, and it is lack of political and economic will. In the case of Flint water, supply was diverted to a dirtier water… in late April 2014, in an effort to save about $5 million over fewer than two years, the city switched from purchasing treated Lake Huron water from Detroit, as it had done for 50 years, to treating water from the Flint River. This is when bezer ine lever, so well developed countries are also ‘experts’ when it comes to messing us on a regional scale.

Back on the ‘agriculture articles’ locally, the issue raised by the local journalists showed that 20% of the 45 samples collected in regions like Port-Louis, Rose-Hill, Beau-Bassin over a three-week period showed higher than the maximum residual limits of specific organic compounds. Again, this 20% cut off is not to be seen as a final exact number etched in time because neither have I, nor other members ofthe public, been privy to more exhaustive studies spaced over many months. What we should know is that these levels are not just from ongoing agricultural practices but could also be accumulated in water supplies and soil, no one really knows, at least to date. Additionally, they show elevated levels of….hexaconazole, promethrin, profenodos, diuron, flonicamid, cypermethrin, chlorfenapyr, carbaryl, formetanate, they show a prevalence of pesticides concoctions which could be the very reason why the same esteemed journalists also reported astronomically high levels in carrots and ti piments. They correctly reported that concoctions are also themselves not well controlled in other countries (per Urvashi Rangan, PhD, toxicologist) and could be the reason why the lack of local policing leads to such a cocktail of pesticides in, as example, lettuce. Yes, staggeringly, there were six pesticides in lettuce. Is it really necessary to use a pesticide bomb to grow lettuce?

Masala

There was another follow-up in Business Magazine, ‘Pesticides dans les échantillons importés: 50% au delà des normes’. In this rejoinder, they showed that in imported products from non-EU countries, like masala, there were six molecules that were above limits. Masala itself is made of multiple ingredients. Additionally, lima beans from Madagascar showed high level of carbaryl. Basmati rice, products apparently rejected from EU countries, showed high levels of pesticide, specifically hexaconazole. So what happens after all this wealth of data gets reported? Does the silence mean nothing substantial is actually being done, or does the silence mean people should pray and hope that what they buy is ‘hopefully’ clean unpolluted stock, despite the fact that there is evidence that 50% of imported products and 20% of local products do not meet the maximum residual limits for pesticides?

These so called ‘percentages’ re- main unconfirmed, they may in fact be much higher numbers, if extensive sampling campaigns spread over wider geographic areas are to be executed. The FAREI also carried out separate sampling from Nov 2009 to Feb 2016; in their 2,592 samples collected, about 8% had pesticides above maximum limits. In 2016, out of 388 samples, about half had pesticides traces and 32 samples were above maximum limits. So the short term result from l’express reports 20% of pesticides above limits, government studies over a longer period show ~ 9% above limits, for the urgent benefit of all Mauritians, we do urgently need to question :

Will reinforcing the Dangerous Chemical Act 2004 have any positive impacts if done without clear clauses of fines and/or policing for agricultural malpractices? Will things improve if penalties are instituted, provided a government inspectorate carries out regular policing and testing?

What are ‘really’ the responsibilities of suppliers? Just sell and make money? What are the economics of switching to smarter agricultural practices or bio-organic pesticides with short life times? Do suppliers not also have a responsibility to alarm, train, educate the other ti-planteurs (apparently 30% of 5,000) who apparently are the ones responsible for uncontrolled applications. Are the 70% grosplanteurs simply doing a great enough job? Why is the data from them never reported? Who has seen it?

Can a codex of dangerous sub- stances with clear and objective CEE limits be made available? Mauritius could lead when it comes to the use of cocktail of pesticides, maybe a relabel could be done locally by suppliers to list the maximum limits of each separate ingredient so we finally know what is going in and where it is coming from.

What is the role of consumer protection agencies in Mauritius? Why not demand transparency on regular testing and data? How is data collected, is it statistically sound?

If the growth of cancer in Mauritius and its epidemiological links with pesticides are being researched, then why is the data not available to the public?

I belong to no political parties nor have any affiliations, nor am I writing against anyone. I write for the people who simply go to bazaar every day. They deserve to know. They deserve to live.