Crops and Carcinogens: Kosovo’s Market for Unsafe, Illegal Pesticides

The bloc's Chemical Agency had classified the fungicide as a carcinogen, meaning it causes cancer, and ruled it unsafe for use.

Three years later, in Kosovo, seven euros will buy a farmer enough Daconil for 10 litres of irrigation water, according to the findings of a BIRN investigation, even though the country removed it from its list of approved pesticides.

Agricultural pharmacies approached by this reporter said they could provide Daconil within days, even sending photos via Facebook as proof.

A Facebook chat between an agricultural pharmacy and BIRN journalists

Coupled with a lack of proper guidance for farmers on how to use pesticides safely and shortcomings in how authorities monitor them, experts say consumers are being put at risk.

"Farmers in Kosovo need professional agricultural advice," said Tahir Tahiri, chairman of the Kosovo Farmers' Union Federation, "but unfortunately no one offers this advice, not from the local level nor from the level of the central institutions."

'Selling Daconil is illegal'

Kosovo's Ministry of Agriculture removed Daconil from its list of approved pesticides in late 2018 following the European Commission's decision.

EU member states were given until November 2019 to withdraw authorisations for plant protection products containing chlorothalonil as an active substance.

Aspiring to one day join the EU, Kosovo generally tries to harmonise its laws and regulations with the bloc's own. Yet while it acted on Daconil, another pesticide that was removed from the EU's approved list in August 2019, Triadimenol, marketed as Falcon, remains on Kosovo's list of pesticides approved for use.

Drita Zogaj, a doctor at Kosovo's National Institute of...