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African anti-counterfeiting efforts led by developed nations
Dec. 10, 2008
Failed crops would have devastating effects in East Africa, where local people get much of their diet from subsistence farming and national economies rely on exports such as coffee, flowers, tea and vegetables for revenue.
“Because there has been so much investigation on counterfeit medicine, I’m seeing a trend from the bad guys to move over to bad products that are less easy to find,” D’Arcy Quinn, international director for anti-counterfeiting at CropLife International, said in an interview. “One of the great ways to do it is pesticides because vegetables don’t complain.”
“It’s a lot like medicine, it’s a very easy product to counterfeit,” said Quinn. “The farmers at this point don’t think the reason their product is going bad is because this stuff is counterfeit, so we have to start educating them.”
Fake pesticides were responsible for a failed coffee crop in Kenya 10 years ago. And the use of counterfeit or unregulated agrochemical has become so severe that the European Union has warned it could ban agricultural imports from Tanzania because tests revealed that the products’ pesticides levels were “all over the map,” said one agriculture industry representative with knowledge of the debate, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“If that happens, you can imagine the impact on the economy,” the source said.
That has led international anti-counterfeiting advocates to focus their work on making sure governments realise just how much counterfeit drugs cost them - in taxes, failed crops, and human lives.
In Kenya, for example, the National Quality Control Laboratories concluded that counterfeit drugs - sometimes nothing more than chalk pills or bottles filled with water - accounted for $130 million in annual sales.
“One specific focus of these training programmes is to show the adverse effect on their economy and their people, until they understand that this is harming them,” Brad Huther, senior advisor at the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center, told Intellectual Property Watch.
“What we’re learning is that the more they understand why it’s in their interest to promote strong engagement and anti-counterfeiting activities, only then do you see the kind of radical change in enforcement along their borders.”
There are fears too that the situation will only get worse in Africa as its nations build ties with China, where up to 75 percent of the world’s counterfeit drugs and pesticides are believed to originate. For the last several years, the Chinese government and Chinese companies have signed numerous deals with the leaders of African nations to build roads, import goods or mine natural resources. As those supply chains open up wider, experts fear that more counterfeits will follow.
“The Chinese have taken the short-term approach of saying, ‘It will take us a long time to fix this problem,’” said Huther. “But I’ve been hearing ‘Give us more time’ for five years now and I’ve seen no sign of significant improvement in China.”
Source: Intellectual Property Watch
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