In 2025, Kenya demonstrates why scientists plead for evidence-based pest control policies, as the country succumbs to misinformation with devastating consequences.
Kenya’s politically motivated ban on eight pesticides is ravaging exports, slashing food production, and sparking Africa’s highest food price surge this year.
Activists targeted Chlorothalonil precisely because it’s widely used, testing vegetables to show detectable residues. However, since no one cares about residues less toxic than coffee, they needed to present it as poisonous.
Through press releases and briefings, they deceived journalists and the public, claiming residues came from a “highly hazardous pesticide” (HHP).
This was false. Kenya prohibits HHP sales to farmers (except rat poison) because few follow the application instructions. Chlorothalonil isn’t an HHP.
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But “toxic HHPs” generate more donations, so activists created their own classification, relabeling Chlorothalonil as an HHP. To manufacture toxicity, they invoked cancer. Chlorothalonil isn’t carcinogenic or even probably carcinogenic.
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As food losses mount and the truth emerges, Kenya faces Sri Lanka’s fate: spiralling prices, starving families, and economic havoc.
