SA moves to ban deadly pesticide

The department of agriculture has gazetted a prohibition notice announcing an imminent ban on the sale, acquisition, use and disposal of agricultural remedies containing Terbufos, a highly toxic pesticide linked to the deaths of six Soweto children in 2024.

The 14 January notice replaces one published on 1 December and calls for public input until 27 February 2026. It proposes that the ban should take effect from 28 February 2026.

In June 2025, cabinet approved a ban on Terbufos – also known through its street name as Halephirimi – and its import into South Africa, noting that it would be accompanied by enforcement measures, while consultations were underway to identify safer alternatives to safeguard food security and support farmers.

Leslie London, a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Cape Town, said it would have taken time for Terbufos to “wash out” of the system even if it had been banned immediately after last year’s cabinet approval.

“That is because there are stocks available and in circulation, in whatever form. For that reason, the delay of six months for the notice to appear is very unfortunate. It means the ‘wash out’ will only start once the ban is in force,” he said.

“This means prolongation of the fatal poisoning epidemic from Terbufos. One hopes that this delay wasn’t intended to allow distributors and retailers to get rid of existing stock, since that would defeat the purpose of trying to prevent deaths from Terbufos.”

London estimated that given the rate of deaths in 2023 and 2024 — averaging one every second day — a delay of six months or more could mean up to another 100 deaths.

‘No effective product stewardship’ 

“I have heard reports that Terbufos is still available in informal markets in the Joburg CBD. If that is the case, then it is clear that there is no effective product stewardship of this extremely hazardous substance. And we continue to sit with the same problem until it is banned.”

Under section 23(4) of the Fertilisers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act, 1947, the minister is required to publish his intention to prohibit Terbufos for public comment before issuing a final notice, the department of agriculture told the Mail & Guardian.

“Timelines will depend on responses received,” it said.

Manufacturers and registration holders had confirmed they had already ceased importation and production of products containing Terbufos, the department said, noting that it had not received further reports of deaths or injuries since June 2025. It said it was working with stakeholders, the ministerial advisory council on food-borne illnesses and authorities addressing illicit trade to ensure compliance.

London said claims by the pesticide industry that Terbufos was entering informal markets through supply chains from other African countries were not supported by evidence.

“I have not seen any independent confirmation of such claims nor any peer-reviewed science that suggests it is the case,” he said. “We know that there are South African suppliers of Terbufos and we know that they have not been compliant with the law thus far. That was clearly stated in presentations to the portfolio committee for agriculture.”

He drew parallels with Aldicarb, another pesticide that caused similar fatal poisonings to Terbufos, which was also said to be coming into South Africa from neighbouring countries.

“After Aldicarb was banned in South Africa in 2016, deaths due to Aldicarb declined rapidly after the banning.”

The March 2025 report of the ministerial advisory committee on foodborne illness said there were 375 deaths from Terbufos, while it was registered as a pest control agent. There was only one death in the same period due to Aldicarb, a banned substance. 

Terbufos is banned in Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Under the Rotterdam Convention, Botswana, Eritrea, Eswatini and Kenya have indicated they will not allow its import.

“If there are no countries bordering South Africa that permit Terbufos, how does Terbufos get into South Africa?” London said, adding that the more likely explanation was South Africa’s “leaky and antiquated system of pesticide management” under legislation that predates apartheid and is no longer fit for purpose, allowing locally supplied highly hazardous pesticides to enter informal markets.

‘Horrible, quick death’

Terbufos is an acute toxin that causes a “spectacular and horrible quick death”, London said. “But it can and should be prevented, particularly because it has a disproportionate impact on children.” 

Thirty-five percent of Terbufos-related deaths in 2023 and 2024 were among children, a problem identified in 2010.

The committee’s report highlighted that the six children died in 2024 from acute organophosphate poisoning linked to Terbufos, possibly through contaminated food purchased from a spaza shop. Terbufos, it said, remains one of the most toxic pesticides legally registered in South Africa.  

“Terbufos granules are widely used in urban areas to control pests, often due to inadequate municipal garbage collection and are sold illegally in informal markets despite not being registered for domestic or community use,”  it said.

Terbufos is a World Health Organisation Class 1a pesticide and among the most toxic chemicals in use globally. It is banned in the European Union and restricted in the United States. 

The report detailed how national forensic chemistry laboratory records describe an “epidemic of fatal poisoning … largely hidden from the public eye”, with many victims, particularly children, dying before reaching healthcare facilities.

The deaths of the six children in Naledi likely represent only a small fraction of “broader, largely hidden pesticide-related fatalities”, the report said.

It said national health data suggests more than 1 400 people a year may have suffered severe pesticide poisoning over the past five years, with 453 reported cases among children under 12 last year alone. Children are 10 times more likely to require intensive care unit treatment and 14 times more likely to die in hospital.

The national policy on pest management, issued in 2010, highlighted the need to phase out WHO Class 1a and 1b pesticides, the report said. However, regulations introduced in August 2023 classified Terbufos only as a restricted-use pesticide, with implementation delays, reportedly to allow the agricultural sector time to adapt, “coinciding with the deaths of the Naledi children”. 

It said given the pesticide’s extreme toxicity, ineffective product stewardship and South Africa’s constitutional obligations to protect health and prioritise children’s best interests, continued registration of Terbufos is highly risky and likely to perpetuate preventable deaths.

‘Tragedies repeat’

The gap between cabinet’s ban and the legal gazetting process by the minister of agriculture “signals that the department has been doing what it needed to, to ensure a ban is defensible, and cannot be legally challenged or derailed by industry”, said Anna Shevel of non-profit civil society network UnPoison.

“It shows the ban is being implemented through a formal process, including a notice of intention and a public comment period, with an effective date. That kind of process can feel slow, but it is how government decisions are made durable and durability matters when challenge and pushback by industry is predictable,” she said.

“Hopefully as they go, they are putting processes in place to accelerate their ability to enforce bans and withstand industry pressure to close the gap between harm and appropriate response.”

Shevel’s greatest concern with this notice and how it gets enforced is around offences and penalties for non-compliance. 

“The latest regulations updated in 2023 do not specify penalties, fines or consequences. If companies or supply chain actors break the rules, or if controls fail and a product ends up harming or killing people, or decimating the environment, there must be real consequences. Transgressors should be charged and penalties should hurt,” she said.

Without that, tragedies repeat. “We’ve seen this pattern before: after the Naledi child deaths, spaza shops were blamed and the informal sector became the scapegoat.” 

That approach devastated livelihoods in “our most vulnerable communities all over the country, disrupted the supply of basic goods and fuelled horrendous xenophobia” while the larger supply chain and the weaknesses in regulation and enforcement escaped accountability, Shevel said, emphasising that preventing the next tragedy also requires a regulator with real capacity.

Public awareness key

Philile Ntuli, a commissioner at the South African Human Rights Commission, said that Immediately after the banning, they wrote to the Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi, who appointed the ministerial advisory committee on food-borne illnesses, to firstly congratulate the interministerial committee and the cabinet for the ban, “but also then to begin to pre-empt the next steps moving forward”.

This included the gradual complete banning of all other HHPs and a response was received, she said. “We thought perhaps we should just give it some time to see what actions are being taken …”

Ntuli said that her office has been circulating two draft letters — to the health and agricultural ministers “to ask the very same questions around where cabinet has made this announcement – it’s been six months – what steps have then been taken in terms of regulatory compliance and ensuring that it’s out of our system. 

“How much stock do we have? Do we have a sense of how much stock there is in the country currently and what steps are there to wash all of that out.”

Public awareness is crucial, she noted, pointing out that the Terbufos linked to the deaths of the six children, was in the informal market “being traded in taxi ranks, in the informal sector”.

“A lot of education needs to take place especially where the informal market operates and where poor communities are accessing Terbufos for rat poisoning. What is the government doing to educate.”

There are levels to education and one of them is “just educating people that what you think is rat poison is actually a pesticide and these are the harmful effects. You’re not just killing rats; you are putting your lives and your children’s lives at risk because people are using it without knowing what it is.”

The second level is “informing people that actually the substance has been banned. This has become culturalised and it intersects with other issues – environmental issues – because they have a lot of rat infestations because of government failure to maintain a clean and healthy environment so what would the government be doing about that.”

Protect human, environmental safety

Pesticide legislation needs a complete overhaul to “take it from the current rubber stamping exercise to procedures that ensure the protection of human and environmental safety”, according to Haidee Swanby of the South African People’s Tribunal on Agrotoxins.

“Once the ban is in place, how will it be monitored and enforced? Who will ensure it is not illegally decanted and sold as street pesticides or that imports and distribution is stopped? What will happen with the stockpiles? What steps will be taken by the department?” Swanby said.

CropLife SA said that it “does not advocate for specific, individual molecules to remain on the market (we do not own any registrations). Our only request to the government is to consider all the facts and practical scenarios, as well as the realities of our farmers (commercial and small scale) before enforcing any blanket bans on any substance”.

London lamented why it had taken “the deaths of six children in Soweto to see action” when the problem had been known for years. “It is urgent now because it has not been urgent for 15 years.”