Protecting While Promoting? The Limits of Agroindustry‐Driven Pesticide Safety in Ugandan Smallholder Agriculture

ABSTRACT

Pesticide use is expanding rapidly across sub‐Saharan Africa, while regulatory oversight and public protection structures remain weak, leaving smallholder farmers exposed to mounting health and environmental risks. In response, agrochemical industry actors have launched ‘safe use’ initiatives that emphasize training and personal protective equipment as evidence of corporate responsibility. This paper critically examines one such intervention in Uganda: the Spray Service Provider (SSP) model, developed by CropLife, which trains selected farmers to become professional pesticide applicators offering spraying services to peers. Drawing on survey data from 110 SSPs alongside interviews with programme managers, we analyse how the model is framed, implemented and experienced in practice and assess its implications for pesticide governance. Findings reveal that the promised professionalization is fragile and uneven. Limited follow‐up, inadequate monitoring, worn‐out PPE and widespread outsourcing to informal ‘spray gangs’ undermine claims of risk reduction. Despite rhetorical commitments to Integrated Pest Management (IPM), SSP operations remain strongly centred on pesticide application. We argue that these shortcomings reflect structural contradictions within the ‘safe use’ paradigm and the neoliberalization of pesticide governance, wherein regulatory and extension functions are increasingly being delegated to private actors with vested interests. Rather than disrupting the pesticide treadmill, the SSP model normalizes and legitimizes chemical dependence, shifting responsibility for risk management onto precarious rural labour. It, thereby, risks entrenching rather than alleviating the harms it purports to address. Moving beyond industry‐led stewardship toward the meaningful protection of health and the environment requires implementing robust public regulation and investment in agroecological alternatives, not deeper reliance on voluntary corporate initiatives.