This is a young charity, founded in 2017. It is the only charity that works on the CEAP priority intervention of pesticide regulation for suicide prevention. CPSP is an initiative of UK’s University of Edinburgh. It is presently working in India and Nepal, collecting data on the number of deaths caused by each pesticide formulation. Once they build a strong evidence-base for the lethality of highly hazardous pesticides in a particular country, they plan on approaching the government to ban the pesticides that kill the most people and assist in drafting the legislation required.

Toxic pesticides kill around 200,000 people per year, primarily in rural Asia. Approximately 90% of these deaths are suicides. Prof. Michael Eddleston, MD is the Founder-Director. He is considered the world’s leading expert on the prevention of pesticide suicides. His research team has conducted extensive studies in Sri Lanka on various methods of reducing overall suicides by reducing fatal pesticide poisoning. The research concluded that the only method that worked was bans of the most human-toxic pesticides. And these bans were wildly effective, lowering the overall suicide rate by 75%, while attempts were actually rising. Other countries have enacted limited bans of pesticides. Studies have shown these bans have also considerably decreased overall suicides, while not affecting agricultural output or the net income of farmers.

Cost Effectiveness

Bans of highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) are possibly the most cost-effective way of saving lives. They are unquestionably the most effective way to decrease suicide globally. By removing dangerous products from the market, lives will be passively saved at no cost. Very few people who survive pesticide self-poisoning make another suicide attempt with pesticides, or another means. The cost of pesticide regulation more or less pays for itself because there are various cost-recovery mechanisms the registrar can employ, such as pesticide licensing fees and fines for producing or selling banned pesticides.

HHP bans generate very large direct and indirect cost-savings for society due to decreased pesticide poisoning. Less health care costs, less time off work due to poisoning, fewer deaths leaving children with one or no parents to support them. The UN has estimated that pesticide poisoning will cost sub-Saharan Africa $90 billion in health care costs from 2005 to 2020 — a region with a small portion of the global burden of pesticide poisoning. This amount actually exceeds the non-HIV health care-designated aid to Africa expected during that period.

Room for Increased Funding

CPSP currently has a budget of around £1.7 million a year. It appears to have a single funder in the Open Philanthropy foundation. It focuses on research and advocacy in a handful of countries. With annual revenue above £10 million, it could expand to more countries, carry out more stringent monitoring of acute pesticide poisoning in those countries, and ramp up advocacy efforts. It could absorb tens of millions of dollars more per year before becoming fully funded because of the huge scale and neglectedness of this space. The only other nonprofit I am aware of combatting pesticide deaths is the Asia-Pacific chapter of Pesticide Action Network, which is of similar size.