The South African People’s Tribunal on AgroToxins (SAPToA) has welcomed the Cabinet’s decision on June 12, 2025, to ban Terbufos, a highly hazardous pesticide (HHP).
The Tribunal submitted: “On June 16, South Africans remember the many young people who died for our democracy. We also remember the young people who died through neglect as a result of policies that preference profit over people’s lives, such as occurred in Naledi, Soweto when, in October 2024, we received the heartbreaking news that six children had died due to exposure to the highly hazardous pesticide (HHP) Terbufos. For that reason, we welcome the ban.
SAPToA noted that, despite a government policy adopted in 2010 to phase out HHPs and a regulation being issued in 2023 to restrict Terbufos, business continued as usual for the chemical industry that, in the week before the Naledi children died, was still insisting on having more time to prepare for any regulations. For industry, the death of our children due to their products is not an urgent matter.
SAPToA added: “This Cabinet decision, recognising our Constitutional imperative to put the child’s best interests first, marks the end of a long era of undue influence by the chemical industry over the regulation of their deadly products. The highest level of government has reined in corporate impunity and said that all South Africans, particularly children, have the right to a safe and healthy environment.”
One down, 194 to go
The banning of Terbufos has been described as a significant victory, signalling the beginning of the transformation of an agricultural system riven with conflict of interest, inequity, abuse of worker rights, and the unchallenged hegemony of toxic chemicals.
According to SAPToA, civil society will continue to push for the immediate ban of all 194 HHPs currently registered in South Africa and rejects the notion of phase-out periods subject to industry discretion, which is a fig leaf for industry delay and prevarication.
SAPToA is also calling for transparency in governance of agricultural toxins, beginning with making available a public database of all pesticides registered in South Africa, as a constitutional right for all South Africans.