Assessment of exposure of professional agricultural operators to pesticides

Abstract

This study investigates how field practices in handling and applying pesticides influence the long-term patterns of professional agricultural operators' exposure to pesticides. It presents the first use of a comprehensive pesticide application dataset collected on behalf of the European Food Safety Authority with 50 operators selected to cover arable and orchard cropping systems in Greece, Lithuania and the UK. Exposure was predicted based on the harmonised Agricultural Operator Exposure Model (AOEM) and compared with Acceptable Operator Exposure Levels (AOELs). The amount of pesticides handled by individual operators across a cropping season was largest in the UK arable and orchard systems (median 580 and 437kg active substance, respectively), intermediate for the arable systems in Greece and Lithuania (151 and 77kg, respectively), and smallest in the Greek orchard system (22kg). Overall, 30 of the 50 operators made at least one application within a day with predicted exposure greater than the AOEL. The rate of AOEL exceedance was greatest in the Greek cropping systems (8 orchard operators, 2.8-16% of total applications; 7 arable operators, 1.1-14% of total applications), and least for the Lithuanian arable system (2 operators, 2.9-4.5% of total applications). Instances in Greece when predicted exposure exceed the AOEL were strongly influenced by the widespread use of wettable powder formulations (>40% of the total pesticide active substance handled for 11 of the 20 Greek operators). In contrast, the total area of land treated with an active substance on a single day was more important in the UK and Lithuania (95 percentile observed value was 132 and 19haday for UK arable and orchard systems, respectively). Study findings can be used to evaluate current assumptions in regulatory exposure calculations and to identify situations with potential risk that require further analysis including measurements of exposure to validate model estimations.

Farmers’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practices on Pesticide Safety: A Case Study of Vegetable Farmers in Mount-Bamboutos Agricultural Area, Cameroon

“…This limitation and ignorance lead some to just sweep the affected skin with a piece of cloth while [11] highlighted the dermal route as a major pathway of exposure and were requesting for possible exposure minimization strategies. Nevertheless, this is generally reduced by using personal protective equipment such as goggles, overall cloths, nose and mouth masks which were less used in the area of study [28]. This exposure will directly pose problems of skin irritation, eyes watering, respiratory tract constriction with breathing difficulties and other related symptoms that these farmers ignored about pesticides.…”

Assessment of occupational exposure to pesticide mixtures with endocrine-disrupting activity

“…This allows in-depth investigations of operators' exposure during mixing/loading and application tasks. Based on an earlier study Wong et al (Wong et al 2018), a total of 50 professional operators were randomly selected to give ten individuals each from arable and orchard farming systems in the UK and Greece, and a further ten from arable agriculture in Lithuania. These countries were selected as having robust data quality (Garthwaite et al 2015).…”

“…Exposure to individual co-formulants was calculated as for active substances, considering exposure to the hands, body, head, and via inhalation; the influence of any personal protective equipment and/or equipment design was included in the calculation and adjustments for dermal and inhalation absorptions were based on the content of individual co-formulants in the products. Full details of the exposure model are provided in Wong et al (2018).…”

Evaluation of Insecticides in Protective Clothing

“…Researches about the potential risk of exposure of pesticide applicators have been studied in some European countries, in which the exposure was based on the Agricultural Operator Exposure Model (AOEM) by collecting the data in mg/person of the ingredients and comparing with Acceptable Operator Exposure Levels (AOELs) [40].…”