During the week, when Waël Toto’s tree and vegetable farm is not overrun by produce lovers who come to spend a moment of relaxation over the weekend, the confusing symphony of blackbirds, savannah mockingbirds and yellow-bellied sugarbirds fills the air in this agricultural area of François, a town in eastern Martinique.
“We are considered by institutions as a pilot farm”says with a bit of pride the 40-year-old farmer who runs this farm“around 5 or 6 hectares” Created in the 1980s by her father, Roger Toto, at the end of a winding road in a place called Vapeur, the heiress officially took over the reins in 2021, but has always worked in this orchard planted with some two thousand fruit trees, gradually diversifying the activity towards the processing of fresh produce and the breeding of guinea fowl and three hundred laying hens.
However, the fertile soil, cultivated for four decades by the Toto family, is contaminated by chlordecone, an organochlorine insecticide that was widely used on banana plantations in Martinique, as well as in neighbouring Guadeloupe, from 1972 until the government finally banned it in 1993, after several exemptions extending its use to the Antilles. Classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organisation in 1979, this highly persistent molecule has caused long-term contamination of soils, waterways and marine environments on the two islands.
The ecological and health scandal finally broke out after the seizure in 2002 of more than a tonne of contaminated sweet potatoes from Martinique in the port of Dunkirk (North). A complaint was filed in 2006 for poisoning. Several associations have filed a civil suit in this case, as has the Territorial Collectivity of Martinique (CTM). In January 2023, seventeen years later, the investigating judges of the Paris court of justice pronounced the final dismissal of the case. After the plaintiffs appealed against this decision, a hearing is scheduled for 22 October at the Paris Court of Appeal.
New situation
Due to the predominance of banana cultivation in the Antilles, the contaminated surface is very large. In Martinique, “There are between 11,000 and 12,000 hectares of contaminated land”says José Maurice, president of the Chamber of Agriculture. An area equivalent to half of the agricultural land used on this volcanic island of 350,000 inhabitants, where 2,800 farmers work. The real extent of the contamination is still not known precisely, despite more than 18,000 tests carried out on the soil: state services have determined “areas at risk of contamination” who are they “covered by analysis around 20%”The government indicates in its annual report, as of December 31, 2022, of the strategic plan to combat chlordecone 2021-2027.
You have 74.26% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
