Since 1990, the Republic of Benin has been engaged in a process of establishing optimal environmental management conditions for sustainable development. And through Article 27 of the Constitution of 11 December 1990, the environment was registered. The framework law of 12 February 1999 is based on this constitution and specifies the 10 environmental commandments. Some points of this law say:

The Beninese environment is your heritage; you must protect it against any damage

You must not emit, discard or allow the emission of a contaminant in excess of the quantity required by laws and regulations

You have a duty to contribute to the sustainable management of our resources: water, air, soil, subsoil, plants and animals

You will only deposit waste in authorized areas and you will not emit

You will be responsible if you pollute your environment and you will repair the consequences under penalty of sanctions

You must not import, market or circulate harmful, dangerous or prohibited chemicals.

An environmental action plan has been put in place at the national level to achieve certain objectives:

- Strengthen the environmental awareness of opinion leaders and the general public

- Meeting the challenges of rational environmental management (pollution control, deforestation, etc.)

- Integrate environmental assessment and audit procedures into development policies, plans, programmes and projects

- Contribute to the improvement of people's living conditions

But since then, Benin has become a transit and marketing hub for certain non-synthesized chemicals, including GLYPHOSATE.  No line of this article is no longer respected. This year, it is planned to import 900,000 litres of glyphosate, 500,000 of which have already arrived in Benin.  This product is currently used in Benin in several crop fields and especially in COTTON fields. These unsynthesized products, after use, always leave residues that pollute our waterways, the water table, our environment and which are very often found in our food supplies.

Indeed, Benin is one of the few African countries that still protect certain plants with multiple virtues. Among these plants, we have ORTIE (Urtica), NEEM (Azadirachta indica), Mucuna (Mucuna pruriens) and Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes). They can therefore be transformed in several forms (Compost, in aqueous solution, as a cover plant,...........). These plants have a potential future in ecologically intensive agriculture and play several roles (herbicide, pesticide, soil fertilizer as well) and can validly replace these toxic products.

Collection of the water hyacinth in the large VALLEY of Dangbo/Benin with the team of the NGO JEVEV

As a young agricultural, environmental and environmental ambassador, my role is now to set up an environmental policy to promote these different plants at the national level, to raise awareness among the various actors in these fields about the consequences of unsynthesized chemicals and the advantages they will have to use these different plants in the form of compost or aqueous solution (the case of NEEM).