Mmachi Tobechukwu
Member
Death by Installments: How Farmers Contribute to Our Healthcare Apocalypse.
------------------------------------
Penning this worrisome post reminds me of that famous book titled "Mort à crédit" (Death by Instalment), a 1936 semi-autobiographical novel by French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
Whenever the talk of rising organ failures in Nigeria comes up, especially kidney diseases, Nigerians are quick to point at fake drugs, adulterated drinks, and sachet alcoholic drinks.
While all these are culprits and should be on the front burner of public health discourses, it should not blindside us to an even more pervasive threat buried in our soil and floating in our water.
This is because the alarming rise in kidney failures across Nigeria is not just a pharmaceutical problem; it is an agricultural and environmental emergency.
Sometime last year, I had a discussion with a Nigerian who lives in Europe and is involved in importing foodstuff from Nigeria.
He complained of the levels of toxins in most of our foods, and why it is a major huddle for Nigerian exporters.
We live in an "anyhowness" country where stewpidity is deregulated and everyone does whatever they believe favours them irrespective of how it is detrimental to the rest of the society.
Unfortunately, the authorities appear oblivious of the dangers posed by the indiscriminate dousing of crops with highly concentrated pesticides and herbicides by farmers at rates that are often at double or triple the recommended dosage.
To most of the farmers, as long as upping the dosages helps to take out the weeds and bugs as fast as possible, they are okay with it.
Unfortunately, these chemicals, particularly organophosphates and glyphosate-based products, are nephrotoxic.
The preponderance in the unregulated and indiscriminate spraying of these chemicals on vegetables, tomatoes, and grains, leave systemic residues that cooking cannot eliminate.
It has made the term “eating healthy” a questionable claim in Nigeria because we are not just eating food; we are ingesting slow-acting poisons that systematically scar the tiny filtering units of our kidneys.
Below the surface, the crisis is even direr. The uncontrolled application of agrochemicals has led to severe soil toxicity. Heavy metals like cadmium, lead, and arsenic mostly hidden as impurities in cheaper fertilizers and pesticides do not biodegrade.
They bind to the soil for decades and when rain falls, these toxic metals leach into our underground water systems. Underground water doesn't recognise state boundaries.
In many rural and semi-urban communities, borehole water is the only source of drinking water, yet it is increasingly a cocktail of heavy metals. The kidney is the body’s primary filter; when it is forced to process this toxic load daily without respite, it collapses.
So when you see or hear of juvenile kidney patients, most of them are victims of these nefarious farming practices which unfortunately, most of the farmers do not know they are doing anything wrong. And this is where the government has as usual dropped the ball.
There is no argument about the fact that chronic exposure to even low levels of these heavy metals causes proximal tubular damage, leading to chronic interstitial nephritis which is a condition now reaching epidemic proportions in agrarian belts.
And unlike sudden poisoning, this is a silent, cumulative assault. By the time symptoms like fatigue or swelling appear, the patient often has less than 20% kidney function left, such as those patients Okwulora showed in his video in Enugu recently.
The biggest challenge we have in Nigeria which boils down to the uselessness of NAFDAC is that we keep looking only at the "final mile" of drug adulteration while ignoring the "first mile" of food production.
The solution to what has now reached an epidemic proportion is an urgent, multi-sectoral action that requires NAFDAC and SON (if it is still existing) to enforce strict Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) on produce, while all the parastatals within the Ministry of Agriculture at federal, state and even local government levels should cease from being salary collectors only, and fashion out an agricultural extension system that must teach safe application methods.
Above that, efforts must be made towards soil remediation and regular heavy metal testing of water sources. Unfortunately, judging from where Nigeria is at present, I am even skeptical that anyone would take whatever I am writing seriously.
But if we continue our ostriching, and refuse to realize that our farmlands are the frontline of our health as we keep poisoning the earth and the water, we are engendering a health crises that we lack both the infrastructure, professional know-how, and technical skills set to handle, when and not if the implosion happens.
Ekwuchaalam.
kelechi Deca
------------------------------------
Penning this worrisome post reminds me of that famous book titled "Mort à crédit" (Death by Instalment), a 1936 semi-autobiographical novel by French writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
Whenever the talk of rising organ failures in Nigeria comes up, especially kidney diseases, Nigerians are quick to point at fake drugs, adulterated drinks, and sachet alcoholic drinks.
While all these are culprits and should be on the front burner of public health discourses, it should not blindside us to an even more pervasive threat buried in our soil and floating in our water.
This is because the alarming rise in kidney failures across Nigeria is not just a pharmaceutical problem; it is an agricultural and environmental emergency.
Sometime last year, I had a discussion with a Nigerian who lives in Europe and is involved in importing foodstuff from Nigeria.
He complained of the levels of toxins in most of our foods, and why it is a major huddle for Nigerian exporters.
We live in an "anyhowness" country where stewpidity is deregulated and everyone does whatever they believe favours them irrespective of how it is detrimental to the rest of the society.
Unfortunately, the authorities appear oblivious of the dangers posed by the indiscriminate dousing of crops with highly concentrated pesticides and herbicides by farmers at rates that are often at double or triple the recommended dosage.
To most of the farmers, as long as upping the dosages helps to take out the weeds and bugs as fast as possible, they are okay with it.
Unfortunately, these chemicals, particularly organophosphates and glyphosate-based products, are nephrotoxic.
The preponderance in the unregulated and indiscriminate spraying of these chemicals on vegetables, tomatoes, and grains, leave systemic residues that cooking cannot eliminate.
It has made the term “eating healthy” a questionable claim in Nigeria because we are not just eating food; we are ingesting slow-acting poisons that systematically scar the tiny filtering units of our kidneys.
Below the surface, the crisis is even direr. The uncontrolled application of agrochemicals has led to severe soil toxicity. Heavy metals like cadmium, lead, and arsenic mostly hidden as impurities in cheaper fertilizers and pesticides do not biodegrade.
They bind to the soil for decades and when rain falls, these toxic metals leach into our underground water systems. Underground water doesn't recognise state boundaries.
In many rural and semi-urban communities, borehole water is the only source of drinking water, yet it is increasingly a cocktail of heavy metals. The kidney is the body’s primary filter; when it is forced to process this toxic load daily without respite, it collapses.
So when you see or hear of juvenile kidney patients, most of them are victims of these nefarious farming practices which unfortunately, most of the farmers do not know they are doing anything wrong. And this is where the government has as usual dropped the ball.
There is no argument about the fact that chronic exposure to even low levels of these heavy metals causes proximal tubular damage, leading to chronic interstitial nephritis which is a condition now reaching epidemic proportions in agrarian belts.
And unlike sudden poisoning, this is a silent, cumulative assault. By the time symptoms like fatigue or swelling appear, the patient often has less than 20% kidney function left, such as those patients Okwulora showed in his video in Enugu recently.
The biggest challenge we have in Nigeria which boils down to the uselessness of NAFDAC is that we keep looking only at the "final mile" of drug adulteration while ignoring the "first mile" of food production.
The solution to what has now reached an epidemic proportion is an urgent, multi-sectoral action that requires NAFDAC and SON (if it is still existing) to enforce strict Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs) on produce, while all the parastatals within the Ministry of Agriculture at federal, state and even local government levels should cease from being salary collectors only, and fashion out an agricultural extension system that must teach safe application methods.
Above that, efforts must be made towards soil remediation and regular heavy metal testing of water sources. Unfortunately, judging from where Nigeria is at present, I am even skeptical that anyone would take whatever I am writing seriously.
But if we continue our ostriching, and refuse to realize that our farmlands are the frontline of our health as we keep poisoning the earth and the water, we are engendering a health crises that we lack both the infrastructure, professional know-how, and technical skills set to handle, when and not if the implosion happens.
Ekwuchaalam.
kelechi Deca