IPM and
farmer’s health
This
issue of the Spider Web Newsletter examines how farmers,
NGOs and government agencies, are integrating health
activities into Integrated Pest Management programs across
Asia. These
activities have been initiated and supported by the FAO
Programme for Community IPM in Asia, with financial support
from the Government of Norway. Helen Murphy, the FAO
Community Health Consultant, is the guest author for this
issue.
Why
is health important?
Most
farmers recognize that pesticides are not good for their
health. In
fact they will readily admit to numerous illness episodes,
which they routinely treat with home remedies. But to
survive, they feel pesticides are a necessary evil,
something which is required in order to make a living from
agriculture.
Meanwhile
most of the existing data on the health effects of
pesticides is derived from health care facilities.
The majority of reported cases are serious
poisonings from suicide-intended ingestions. Occupationally
related poisonings are consistently under-reported. For
instance, global reviews of hospital data estimate 3
million cases per year, 2 million of which are suicides.
Only 700 thousand are occupationally related[1].
Yet agriculture worker surveys estimate occupational
rates 36 times higher.
From his 4 Asian country surveys[2],
in 1990 Jeyaratnam estimated that up to 25 million
pesticide-related illnesses could be occurring per year in
developing countries among a work force of 830 million
agriculture workers[3].
This is based on 3% of farmers recalling an illness episode
over the past year. Recall surveys from other countries
find still larger proportions at 4.5% in Costa Rica, 9% in
Indonesia, and up to 10% in Bolivia.
Because
information on occupationally related poisonings come from
special studies or recall surveys, policy makers can
rationalize that these are only ‘unusual situations’
and not representative of reality. In addition, the agro-
chemical industry can claim that the harmful effects are
only due to misuse.
Furthermore,
the data that does exist is rarely shared with the
stakeholder farmer-user. So they continue to use toxic
products with a vague awareness that they are harmful.
Without alternatives to pesticides or an understanding that
what they are experiencing are in fact related to pesticides,
a decision to protect their own personal health cannot be
made.
What
is the IPM health component?
To
raise a healthy crop, the farmer must also be healthy. In
this way farmers are also part of the IPM ecological
paradigm. Knowledge-based IPM crop management without the use
of toxic chemicals protects the health of farmers and their
families, the natural environment, and has economic
advantages. Health therefore has become a decision making
issue when farmers consider reducing the use of pesticides
within their IPM crop management strategy.
The
Health Component of the FAO Programme for Community IPM in Asia
aims to address two issues: i) lack of surveillance data on the
magnitude of occupationally related pesticide poisonings and
ii) putting this information in the hands of farmers in
conjunction with viable alternatives to chemically dependent
crop management.
