On the 21st of February, Unpoison SA published an update of the database of highly hazardous pesticides registered for use in South Africa that they initially published two years earlier.

Shockingly, unlike other countries, this database has hitherto not been publicly available. Instead of the government housing this database in a transparent manner, as is the case with other countries, Unpoison explains that, “CropLife, the trade organisation representing the pesticide industry, houses this information privately on a members-only platform via their subsidiary, Agri-Intel.

Here is an extract from their press release:

“There is currently no way for a member of the public to find out which pesticides are used in South Africa, how they are classed, their toxicity and impacts, or any registration details. UnPoison has been campaigning since 2019 for the national database to be housed independently by DALRRD, and freely accessible to the public. Access to UnPoison’s HHP database ensures that the South African agricultural sector, policymakers, researchers, and the public are empowered with accurate data and (globally harmonised) classifications to inform our policies with best practices. This is essential to protect human health, water, soil, the environment, biodiversity and specifically the well being of rural farmers, farmworkers, and farm dwellers, from the most hazardous and harmful pesticides on earth. 

“Pesticides deemed too toxic to be in use.

The criteria of the database includes pesticides that are both acutely toxic; they may cause death or irreversible harm to health from a single exposure; and those that are chronically toxic, meaning that they cause injury and disease over time with multiple exposures. It is the chronic exposures that are linked with cancers, multi-generational disorders, neurological disease, reproductive disorders, auto-immune disease, severe renal, respiratory and dermal conditions, that may and do lead to illness and death over time. Chronic poisoning is hard to prove as a causal link to disease however, and this has enabled the status quo to continue.”

These are their key findings:

  • “195 HHPs are legally in use in South Africa (including Terbufos), largely unregulated, enabling industry impunity across the value chain for the well documented harms they continue to cause.
  • Only 29 (approx 13%) of South Africa’s 224 Highly Hazardous Pesticides have been fully banned to date.
  • 116 (almost 60%) of SA’s legally in-use Highly Hazardous Pesticides are “not authorised for use” in the EU.
  • There are twenty-two pesticides in criteria 1 (WHO 1a and 1b – the most acutely toxic class of pesticide in the world) still legally in use.
  • In April 2022 the Registrar of Act 36 issued a phase-out notice for pesticides with active ingredients that meet the criteria of carcinogenicity, mutagenicity and reproductive tox (CMR) of the GHS. These fall into criteria 2, 3 and 4 of the JMPM system on UnPoison’s database. There are 60 pesticides that meet those criteria still legally in use, including the 28 pesticides of the Registrars phase out list. This means that an additional 32 dangerously harmful pesticides should be included on that list for phase out, but as yet have not been.
  • As of November 2024, chlorpyrifos and cartap hydrochloride have been added to the ban list in South Africa.
  • Terbufos, the pesticide responsible for the most deaths by poisoning in South Africa since 2009, including the accidental deaths of 23 children last year, belongs to three of the eight FAO/WHO JMPM HHP criteria:
    • Criteria 1 – WHO 1a and 1b – acutely toxic,
    • Criteria 6 – Rotterdam Convention Prior informed consent (PIC) pesticide,
    • Criteria 8 – High incidences of severe or irreversible adverse effects on human health and the environment.”

UnPoison points out that since 2019 it has called for the phase out of the most acutely toxic class of pesticides, through several various legal submissions to the Department of Land Reform and Rural Development.

Click here to read the full press release: Lifting the Veils of Secrecy: UnPoison’s 2025 Update to South Africa’s Highly Hazardous Pesticide Database

Click here for the updated database: https://unpoison.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/UnPoison-SA-HHPs-Database-JMPM-criteria_GHS_ECHA_FEBRUARY-2025..pdf

UnPoison is an advocacy non-profit organisation that specialises in the regulatory framework governing pesticides as well as a high-level expert network of over 70 top experts, including approximately 20 university science departments, toxicologists, doctors, lawyers, scientists, agronomists, manufacturers, farmers, agricultural standards and certifiers, farmworker organisations, unions, researchers and NGO’s. UnPoison’s members participate in national, regional, and international committees contributing to pesticide research, policy, and standards at every level. For more information you can visit their website: https://unpoison.org/.