SAPToA Demands urgency, prosecution, and compensation
SAPToA press release
The South African People’s Tribunal on Agrotoxins (SAPToA) has delivered a forceful submission, supporting the Minister of Agriculture’s long overdue intention to ban Terbufos, an organophosphate pesticide classified by the World Health Organisation as “extremely hazardous”. The coalition stressed that the ban should be enforced with immediate effect, as any continued use, storage, or distribution of Terbufos would violate core constitutional rights, including the right to life, dignity, health, and children’s rights, and expose the State to potential legal challenge.
Terbufos is banned across most SADC countries and the European Union because of its severe health and environmental dangers, and yet it continues to poison South Africans, particularly children and farmworkers, who are most vulnerable to its neurotoxic and fatal effects.
Cabinet banned Terbufos in June 2025, yet the Department of Agriculture failed to act with any urgency. Minister Steenhuisen took 6 months to gazette the decision, then extended the public comment period by another month, ending on 27 February 2026.
A preventable poisoning crisis
Terbufos shot into public consciousness after the widely publicised deaths of six children in Naledi, Soweto, in October 2024. However, these deaths were not isolated incidents. Leading South African scholars have long documented and formally raised the severe and predictable harms associated with this agrotoxin. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Toxins also reported to the government, in his preliminary findings in 2023 and his finalised report in 2024, that Terbufos was implicated in numerous fatalities, with children being especially vulnerable. No action was taken.
Terbufos is allegedly still being illegally sold as a ‘street pesticide’ to address rampant household pest infestations arising from failing waste management services in low-resource communities. However, “We cannot allow the narrative of Terbufos ‘continuing to circulate’ to be twisted into blaming desperate households,” said Deneco Dube, General Secretary of the farm worker union, CSAAWU. “The truth is that for decades, manufacturers have ignored their legal duty to ensure that their products do not end up poisoning children, and the Department of Agriculture has failed to enforce those obligations. The deaths we are seeing are not tragic accidents—they are the predictable outcome of a system that allowed it to happen.”
Government Delay – Deadly Consequences
Despite the Naledi tragedy, the Department of Agriculture – the very institution mandated to protect the public from agrotoxins – resisted banning the organophosphate pesticide Terbufos. Rather than acting decisively, the Minister repeated CropLife’s evasions, shift blame for illegal sales onto “foreigners” without evidence, and defend Terbufos as vital food security. Dube puts it plainly: “Government has consistently prioritised chemical industry interests over the lives of citizens and farmworkers”.
Ultimately, the Cabinet took the momentous decision to ban Terbufos on 12 June 2025. The delay in gazetting and implementing this decision will undoubtedly cost lives.
The Ministerial Advisory on the banning of Terbufos confirms1 that in 2023 and 2024 alone, mortuary data recorded at least 350 Terbufos-related deaths, with children making up 35% of these fatalities. SAPToA estimates that over 100 preventable deaths may have already occurred during the period that Cabinet decided to ban Terbufos and the decision being actioned. While the most recent deaths attributed to organophosphate pesticides2 have not yet been formally confirmed, the statistics are a stark reminder of the ongoing and systemic crisis of toxic pesticide exposure in South Africa — and further evidence that the delay in enforcing the ban continues to place communities, especially children, at unacceptable risk.
Dorothy Brislin of groundWork said,
It is unconscionable that authorities had the statistics of Terbufos-related deaths and took no immediate action to prevent them, especially when children were particularly at risk. A full, immediate ban on Terbufos is the only morally and scientifically defensible decision. Government cannot claim ignorance – it has the data, and it has the mandate. What it lacks is political will and urgency. We’re calling for action that matches the scale of this crisis, including prosecution of those culpable and compensation for affected families.
SAPTOA is calling on the Department to provide a full explanation of this delay and to outline safeguards to ensure that future Cabinet decisions on urgent public health risks are implemented with urgency. The coalition argues further that failure to enforce a ban on Terbufos in a timely manner has created a clear imperative for both prosecution and compensation, and is calling for transparent criminal investigations and robust compensation mechanisms for families whose loved ones have been killed or permanently harmed by regulatory failure.
Ban Terbufos now: No Loopholes. No Derogations. No Phase‑Out.
The SAPToA submission reiterated unequivocally that Terbufos must be banned. However, SAPToA coordinator Haidee Swanby warned that “a legal loophole now allows industry to continue using banned pesticides by applying for ‘derogations’. No derogations must be allowed for Terbufos, and in fact, this loophole must be scrapped entirely. Furthermore, any ‘phase out’ period for Terbufos is a pretext for disposing of hazardous stockpiles onto the public, when authorities and industry should instead ensure immediate, safe, and lawful disposal. Offloading hazardous stockpiles onto the public is incompatible with public health science and violates South Africa’s constitutional obligations to protect life, dignity, and children’s rights”. She added that the child’s best interests are paramount in all matters concerning the child and the Department of Agriculture must explain how its delays align with its Constitutional obligations.
A systemic failure, not an isolated incident
The ongoing street-level availability of Terbufos, reported in recent media, reflects systemic regulatory weaknesses rather than isolated stewardship failures.
Colette Solomon, Director of Women on Farms Project (WFP), highlighted that,
“Terbufos is one of hundreds of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) in use in agricultural production, as well as in public spaces and even in our homes. Without fundamental reform of South Africa’s pesticide governance system – including inter-departmental coordination, labour protection, environmental oversight, and criminal enforcement – similar crises will recur, even after Terbufos is banned”.
Mariam Mayet, Executive Director of the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACBIO), underscores the “urgency of overhauling South Africa’s archaic 1947 pesticide legislation and shifting the food system towards agroecology.”
SAPToA challenged the Minister Steenhuisen’s assertion that banning Terbufos and other HHPs would have “devastating impacts on food security,” requesting access to the evidence and modelling underpinning this claim. The coalition notes that global findings show transitions away from HHPs can be achieved without harming food security when supported by appropriate policies and practices.
SAPToA demands:
- Immediate publication of the ban, with no derogations or phase-out.
- Safe and lawful disposal of all existing stockpiles, with clear public oversight, ensuring that not one milligram of Terbufos may be sold after 28 February 2025.
- Publication of the Department of Agriculture’s investigation into stewardship breaches and illicit distribution of Terbufos, including details of systemic failures.
- Immediate criminal investigations and prosecutions for the regulatory failures and provision of robust compensation mechanisms.
- A transparent enforcement plan, developed in coordination with SAPS and other agencies, to prevent illegal distribution and hold violators accountable.
- Clarity on criminal investigations, liability, and compensation mechanisms for families affected by Terbufos-related deaths and long-term health harm.
- Full implementation of the 2010 Pesticide Management Policy, including the long-overdue phase-out of highly hazardous pesticides.
- Immediate public access to the national pesticide register, updated quarterly as required by regulation and previously promised by the Minister Steenhuisen by 31 May 2025.
- Structural reform of Act 36 of 1947, replacing the current outdated registration regime with a system that prioritises health, environmental protection, and accountability.
Download the submission here.
Contact
SAPToA Coordinator: Haidee Swanby, haidee@polka.co.za +27(0)82 459 8548
https://agrotoxinstribunalsa.co.za
