About The Film
Toxic Harvest, produced by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in association with the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE), and the Women on Farms Project (WFP).
Toxic Harvest is available with subtitles in Afrikaans, English and German.
Synopsis
Toxic Harvest: The Hidden Truth about Pesticides is a gripping documentary feature film that uncovers the devastating and far-reaching impacts of agrotoxins, highlighting the use of highly hazardous pesticides in South Africa. Shot with unflinching honesty, it reveals how agrotoxins poison the environment – contaminating the soil, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat – affecting us all.
The film tells the stories of farm workers on the frontlines of exposure to toxic chemicals and their courageous fight against an unjust and exploitative system.
Through expert interviews, striking visuals, and eye-opening revelations, Toxic Harvest sheds light on the systemic failures that allow these chemicals to persist – from weak regulatory measures to the profit-driven agendas of agrochemical companies. It also exposes the troubling double-standards that permit pesticides banned in some parts of the world to be sold and used elsewhere.
At its core, the film calls for urgent action to phase out highly hazardous pesticides and a transition in our food production to agroecological farming practices for a safer, more sustainable future for all.
Filmmaking Team
Andréa Gema is a documentary filmmaker whose work explores the intersections of agriculture, corporate power, and food sovereignty in Africa. She is the director and editor of Toxic Harvest (2025), a compelling investigative film that examines the hidden costs of pesticide use in industrial agriculture, revealing the human and environmental toll behind the food on our plates. Her previous film, The Last Seed (2023), traced the fight for seed sovereignty across the continent, spotlighting the resilience of African farmers and the grassroots movements resisting corporate control of the food system. Driven by a commitment to social justice and environmental accountability, her work combines deep research with a powerful cinematic style, amplifying underrepresented voices and challenging viewers to rethink the politics of food. She continues to use film as a tool for advocacy and education, working closely with communities, scientists, and activists to illuminate urgent stories often left untold.
Jan Urhahn is an expert in agriculture and food. From 2019 to 2025, he served as the Director of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s Food Sovereignty Programme in Johannesburg, South Africa. His work focuses on critical issues such as farm workers’ rights, the impacts of hazardous pesticides on humans and the environment, food prices, and the control of seed and land. He is also the Executive Producer of the award-winning documentary feature film The Last Seed.
Refiloe Joala is a researcher and programme manager specialising in African food systems. With over a decade in the development sector, she has led and contributed to numerous research projects and consultancies focused on agro-food system transformations in Southern Africa, food and land rights, and climate change. As the Food Sovereignty Programme Manager at Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung Southern Africa, she combines research, political education, alliance building, and filmmaking to advocate for food sovereignty and farm workers’ rights. Refiloe is also a co-producer of the award-winning documentary feature film, The Last Seed.
Featured Voices
Agroecological farmer, activist and African Marmalade organic farm owner
Journalist and health entrepreneur
Professor and Chair of Public Health Medicine in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town
Professor and Head of Environmental Health Division, University of Cape Town
Professor and founder of the Environmental and Nano Sciences research group in the Department of Chemistry, University of the Western Cape
Associate Professor, Integrated Pest Management, Stellenbosch University
Pesticide Risk Manager, South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment
General Secretary, Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union (CSAAWU)
Head of Special Projects, Dutoit Agri
Doctoral Candidate in Environmental and Geographical Science, University of Cape Town
Director, Women on Farms Project
Former farm worker and activist
Former farm worker and activist
Farm worker
Agroecological farmer and Muzwali Farm owner
Head of Spier Food Garden, Spier Wine Farm
Producers and Partners
The Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS) is an internationally active, progressive non-profit organisation for political education. One of the six major political foundations in the Federal Republic of Germany, the RLS is closely linked to Die Linke, the German Left Party. Since its founding in 1990, the RLS has been engaged in the analysis of social processes and developments. Through its teams in many regional and country offices, the RLS works with hundreds of partner organisations, political actors and individuals in over 80 countries. One of the topics the organisation is engaged in is food sovereignty. The aim of the RLS's work is to strengthen emancipatory political forces.
The African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) is a research and advocacy organisation working towards food sovereignty and agroecology in Africa, with a focus on biosafety, seed systems and agricultural biodiversity. ACB is committed to dismantling inequalities and resisting corporate-industrial expansion in Africa’s food and agriculture systems.
Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE) is a South African rural development NGO that works directly to support and facilitate movement building, voice and agency of the rural poor. The focus is on food sovereignty, the land and agrarian questions in South Africa.
Women on Farms Project (WFP) is a feminist NGO in South Africa, which has the goal of empowering women farm workers to improve their living and working conditions and to achieve gender equity in the workplace, the home and the farming community through rights-based and gender education, lobbying, advocacy and building of farm worker structures. WFP also collaborates with global partners especially around advocacy campaigns of international interest, such as agrochemicals, climate change and a just transition.
