Farm workers are falling sick in a Kenyan horticultural town. Were they poisoned by pesticides?

Timau’s industry has provided local Kenyans with an economic lifeline. But now, many believe it has made them seriously ill

When Reuben Muriki fainted while doing a chore in the compound of his home near the horticultural town of Timau in central Kenya several years ago, it marked the start of a series of increasingly serious health episodes.

His joints became swollen, his skin became discoloured and he found breathing difficult. He was in and out of hospital, and was forced to quit his work as a pesticide sprayer at a flower farm. Doctors treated him for suspected tuberculosis in vain.

“He would often fall and completely lose consciousness,” his mother, Margaret Mwanjaro, said in their living room in Mukuri village.

Now 30, Muriki is unable to walk on his own. He speaks incoherently and quickly forgets things.

Mwanjaro, on whom Muriki relies for round-the-clock care, believes her son’s condition is a result of poisoning from the pesticides that he used to spray on the flower farm.

Timau, a small town of about 10,000 people, has for decades hosted horticultural companies that employ thousands of workers from the area. Many have fallen sick over the years, some dying young. Their relatives say pesticides are to blame.

Muriki is now one of 87 people seeking to join a court petition case against the Kenyan government and agrochemical companies challenging the sale of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs).

Pesticide use has risen to record levels in Kenya, as farmers seek higher yields and improved food quality for local and export markets. In recent years, concerns have grown about the use of chemicals that pose severe risks, including some that are banned in the EU. Two UN agencies – the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization – have said HHPs present particularly high levels of acute or chronic hazards to health or the environment.

The petition accuses five agrochemical companies – Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer, BASF and Nairobi-based Twiga Chemical Industries – of selling pesticides containing lethal active ingredients in Kenya.

It was filed in 2022 by the nonprofit African Centre for Corrective and Preventive Action and environmental and human rights lawyer Kelvin Kubai. Last November, the court allowed the petitioners to publish an advert inviting people allegedly affected by 11 pesticide ingredients to join the case to make it a class-action lawsuit. The court is expected to decide whether to enjoin them early next year.

“These are people our government has neglected, (and that) these companies and producers have neglected right at the point of sale,” said Kubai, who hails from Timau. “The Kenyan farmer – just like the American farmer, just like the European farmer – deserves to be protected.”

Those who responded had histories of symptoms associated with pesticide exposure, including skin, stomach and chest problems, dizziness and Parkinson’s disease, a condition that causes nerve cells in the brain to become damaged over time.

Scientists hired by the petitioners tested the 87 court case applicants for paraquat, a highly toxic chemical that has been used as a herbicide and has been associated with Parkinson’s disease , and glyphosate, a cancer-linked weed killer. Kubai said that in all 87 people, they found levels of both chemicals above permissible levels.

In Muriki’s case, the scientists found nearly 200 times the reference limit for paraquat and 48 times the reference limit for glyphosate in his urine sample.

“We were not able to find any other cause of the conditions [affecting Muriki], except his paraquat and glyphosate levels,” said Prof Zakayo Thaimuta, a pathologist who worked with the petitioners. Thaimuta noted that all 87 people had presented with at least three major medical conditions. The most common were Parkinson’s disease, throat inflammation and pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease.

Research has pointed to a huge presence and use of HHPs in Kenya. A report released in April by Greenpeace found that nearly half (48) of the 141 active pesticide ingredients registered in the country last year were classified as HHPs.

Like her son, Mwanjaro also worked at a horticultural farm, performing tasks such as weeding and picking roses and other flowers in greenhouses for five years until 2017. She also developed health complications.

She described starting work early in the morning without wearing personal protective equipment, just a few hours after sprayers had applied chemicals on the flowers. “You’d feel the fumes getting into your throat,” she said.

Four years after she began working at a farm, she quit her job after developing blisters on her body and noticing that she was becoming weaker. Today, her other health conditions include worn nails, inflamed skin and constant coughing.

Responding to a request for comment, Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in 2016 , said all its products were safe for humans and the environment if applied according to label instructions, and that it applied consistent safety standards worldwide.

A Syngenta spokesperson said all its products sold in Kenya followed the country’s regulatory standards and that it stood fully behind their safety and effectiveness when used according to labelled instructions.

The Pest Control Products Board, which regulates the importation, exportation, manufacture and use of pest control products in Kenya, declined to comment because the matter was in court. BASF and Twiga Chemical Industries did not respond to questions sent to them.

Acres upon acres of lush horticultural farms stretch as far as the eye can see around Timau. The farms, which mainly target the export market, have been an economic lifeline for generations of residents.

But in the town itself and its surrounding settlements, stories abound of farm workers falling seriously ill.

Alice Kagwiria lives in Mukuri’s neighbouring village of Riverside Kieni. One morning in 2013 she was on her way to a bus stop to report for work at a horticulture farm when she felt a sharp pain in her neck and back – as if something heavy had landed on her, she said. Shortly after, her hand went numb.

For 11 years, she said, she had worked without gloves in greenhouses for eight hours a day, five days a week, picking green peas and runner beans that colleagues had sprayed with pesticides.

With her hand impaired, the company assigned her “light duty” for a few months. The following year she was let go. Kagwiria, who now walks with a limp, pulled down a sock to show skin rashes that have emerged in the intervening years. She also has eye and stomach problems.

“Anybody considering a job at a horticulture farm should think twice,” she said outside her house. “You’re better off working somewhere that won’t cause you health problems.”

The impact is felt beyond Timau, in the wider Meru county, from where the horticultural industry attracts labour.

Stephen Muriungi lives in Ndunyu Barikui village, about 25 miles from Timau, and worked as a sprayer on a flower farm in the town for two-and-a-half years. In 2018 he started getting severe headaches that lasted hours. In time his legs weakened and he became unable to walk.

He recalled how, wearing an apron and gloves, he would use a sprayer to pump pesticides stored in a rucksack for hours at a time, the fumes often becoming unbearable.

“Those chemicals were very strong,” the 47-year-old said. “Even after removing clothes, your whole body would smell of chemicals.”

Today he is heavily incapacitated – he moves slowly, has stiff muscles and poor balance and struggles to hold spoons and cups because his hands shake – and relies on his family’s support as caregivers.

The sale and use of HHPs in Kenya has caused intense debate. Campaigners and health experts have called for bans and the use of safer alternatives.

Kubai said there was an “extreme urgency” to address the issue, and lamented that Kenya’s healthcare system lacked the capacity to provide comprehensive care for those affected. “We do not have the luxury of a healthcare system that can wholly rely on curative measures. We can only excel through preventive measures, and that means that our farmers ought to be protected,” he said.