In a landmark moment for agricultural reform and environmental justice, the National Department of Agriculture convened a historic Colloquium on Pesticide Policy Framework last week, bringing together government departments, farmer associations, scientists, civil society, industry, labour, farmworkers, and human rights organisations in an unprecedented, multi-sectoral dialogue on pesticide policy reform.
The colloquium marks a serious effort to modernise South Africa’s pesticide governance, especially the Farm Feeds, Fertiliser, and Agrochemical Remedies Act 36 of 1947, signalling a shift from a fragmented and outdated regulatory framework toward a unified, science-based, and socially accountable system.
The event sought to reignite national commitment through a One Health approach, integrating animal, human, plant, and environmental health to evaluate pesticide risks in a holistic and interconnected manner, and to finally modernise and implement the 2010 Pesticide Management Policy, which has remained unimplemented 15 years later.
“For the first time in history, civil society was not merely in the room, but at the table,” said Anna Shevel, network coordinator of UnPoison.
Among the civil society, farm worker and human rights organisations present were Women on Farms Project who were well represented in numbers and demanded a voice in the discussions, the South African Human Rights Commission, and other participants from the South African People’s Tribunal on Agrotoxins.
Academia was represented by University of Pretoria’s Plant Sciences Department, while the University of Cape Town’s Divisions of Public Health Medicine and Environmental Health; the Poison Information Centre from the Red Cross Children’s Hospital; and numerous experts, academics, and impacted citizens aligned through the UnPoison network.
Industry and farmers were represented by CropLife, South African Bioproduct Organisation (SABO), and bodies from various agricultural commodity sectors, such as GrainSA, Hortgro, the Citrus Growers Association, alongside critical government partners. Alongside the National and Provincial Departments of Agriculture from a number of provinces, the colloquium was attended by the Departments of Health; Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment; and Employment and Labour, which underscored the urgent need for interdepartmental coordination due to overlapping mandates and legislative gaps.
The colloquium’s closure was marked by a clear, unambiguous set of commitments from the Deputy Director-General of the National Department of Agriculture Dipepeneneng Serage, including:
- Public access to the national pesticide registration database within two weeks.
- Revival of an interdepartmental government committee to address legislative fragmentation and drive coherent pesticide governance.
- Formal adoption of a One Health framework in risk assessment and policy design.
- Increased capacity in the agrochemical registration office, including additional technical skills to evaluate biological products.
- To ban problematic pesticides that have been banned elsewhere.
- Development of a sustainable finance mechanism to resource the registration office.
- Greater transparency and stakeholder inclusion, especially involving civil society and farm workers in all future consultations.
For decades, the Department of Agriculture has faced sustained criticism for its lack of responsiveness, bureaucratic inertia, and regulatory capture, but this colloquium signalled a turning tide.
“The transparency, willingness to acknowledge past mistakes and intent to reorganise the need to change how business is done are strongly welcomed and it gives us a sense of hope and optimism that there will be meaningful change,” said Professor Leslie London, Chair of Public Health Medicine in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at UCT.
Held after long-standing calls for action, the event laid the groundwork for a bold and collaborative path forward, one that values transparency, centres public health and environmental stewardship, and opens regulatory space for safer, sustainable agricultural innovations.
That future, Shevel stressed, includes farmers and farmworkers at the heart of a successful outcome for the future: “The outcomes we are advocating for in this process are not about dismantling agriculture, they’re about future-proofing it. Every stakeholder involved, from farmworkers to regulators to civil society, shares a common goal: to protect the viability of farming while safeguarding health and ecosystems. There is no appetite for a ‘win-lose’ outcome. Our shared commitment is to a win-win-win path forward, where agriculture flourishes, communities are protected, and environmental ecosystems are restored.”
The historic replacement of a “prehistoric” Act written in the 1940s begins with this collective vision and commitment. The Pesticide Policy Framework Colloquium was a turning point, not just in pesticide policy, but in democratic participation and government accountability.