Occupational Health: Farmers Knowledge on Pesticide usage and it’s Harmful Effects on Human Health in Rural Areas of South India

An estimated 1.3 billion workers are engaged in agricultural production worldwide. This represents half of the total world labor force. Almost 60% of them are in developing countries. Pesticides can enter the human body by three common ways: Through the skin (contact), the mouth (ingestion) and the lungs (inhalation). The state of the chemical, i.e. solid, liquid or gas, affects the chances of pesticide penetration into the body. During the usage of pesticides farmers reported problems such as eye irritation, headache, dizziness, breathing difficulty, skin rashes and all of these symptoms at least once during their exposure to pesticides. A field based cross sectional study was conducted in the rural areas of Karnataka state, Gadag district, to assess the farmer’s knowledge, attitudes and practices about pesticide usage and its harmful effects on human health. A pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain the data from January to February 2020. Data was collected at the rural settings by visiting their house and agriculture fields. Totally 265 farmers were interviewed, out of that more than half of them have good knowledge about pesticide usage but only few of them have knowledge about the harmful effects of pesticide on their health. In our study findings majority of the farmers are not aware about the health hazards due to usage of pesticides, they showed good attitude and poor practices about pesticide usage.


Introduction
A great majority of agricultural workers are found in Asia, which is the most densely populated region of the world, with more than 40% of the world's agricultural population concentrated in China and more than 20% in India 1 . In India inadequate safety precautions by workers using or manufacturing pesticides, health checks for employees or workers, labeling of chemical products and chemical contamination of food, unsafe storage of chemicals in the home, environmental pollution from industry often due to uncontrolled disposal of waste are the major causes for occupational hazards 2 . Mixing and spraying are the tasks associated with the greatest intensity of pesticide exposure, given that during this phase farmers are exposed to the concentrated product and, therefore, often face high exposure events 3,4 . Studies on pesticide dermal contamination highlight that the spray deposition the sprayers bodies is crucial as these results indicated that all the farmers were at risk from the pesticides they used 5 . The working environment frequently contains a wide variety of chemical, physical, biological and psychosocial health hazards. The early detection and assessment of occupational hazards fall under the discipline of occupational hygiene 6 . In this study we wanted to assess the rural area farmer's knowledge about the pesticide usage and its harmful effects on human health.

Study Design
A field based cross sectional study was conducted in rural areas of Gadag district on farmers. Purposive sampling technique was used to recruit the study participants. Socio-demographic details, knowledge, attitudes and practices about the pesticide usage and its harmful effects on farmers health related data was obtained using pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire.

Study Setting
A field based cross sectional study was conducted in the rural areas of Gadag district on farmers. Data was obtained from January to February 2020 using a pre-tested semi-structured interview questionnaire.

Participants
Those who were involved in the agriculture activity and have experience of previously used the pesticides and those who have at least once sprayed the pesticide and among them those who given oral consent to participate in the study were included.

Variables
Independent variables: Gender, age, education and income status.
Dependent variables: knowledge was assessed using semistructured questionnaire.

Data Sources
Primary data was obtained introducing the questionnaire to farmers. Visited the farmer's agriculture fields and questionnaire was administered related to pesticide usage and its harmful effects on their health.

Study Size
KSRDPR University was located in the Gadag district headquarters. Purposive sampling technique method was used to recruit the study participants. Totally 265 farmers data was collected from the 5 villages.

Statistical Methods
Data was entered into excel sheet, analyzed using SPSS v20 and expressed in frequency and percentages.

Results
In the current study majority of the participants belongs to 41-50 age group, half of them are completed primary education and all most all are married (Table 1).
In the north Karnataka majority of the farmers grown commercial crops and in Nagavi majority of farmers grown vegetables ( Table 2).
In our study almost all the farmers have knowledge about definition of pesticide, its name, how many times it should be sprayed, storage and its safe usage. Majority of the farmers were aware about necessity of reading the label on pesticide prior to its usage and nearly half of them know the names of banned pesticides (Table 3).
In the present study majority (36.6%) of the study participants responded that pesticide residue will exist in air, soil, surface water and fruits, seeds, leaves of crop. For the question disposal of pesticide containing majority (26.8%) of the responded, they will burn the containers (Table 4).
In this study all farmers replied that they were aware about the adverse health effects of pesticides and if they get exposed then they will visit the hospital. If they saw the pesticide poisoned person they will take them into the hospital, nearly half of the farmers responded that they will wash pesticide contacted skin with soap and water. None of them aware about the poison information centre and its toll free number (1800-4250297) ( Table 5).  In our findings majority of the farmers opined that pesticide can enter all routes (Nose, mouth, skin and eyes) and skin irritation and irregular heartbeat are the symptoms and signs (Table 6).

Socio-demographic Characteristics
Majority of the farmers are males, belongs in the age group 41-50 years completed their primary education and married.    The similar socio-demographic characteristics found in study conducted at Puducherry 7 .

Types of Crops Grown
In this area majority of the farmers grown commercial crops followed by vegetables. Similar findings found in study conducted at Karnataka 8 Bangladesh 9 and Palestine 10 .

Knowledge Pesticide Usage
In our study majority of the farmers knows about where to store the pesticide containers or bottles, a study conducted at Chikkabalapur district South Karnataka found the similar findings 11 , Ethiopia 12 and Pakistan 13 . 1/3 rd of the farmers responded that the necessity of the reading the label on pesticide container, the similar opinion found in study conducted at Bangladesh 9 and Brazil 14 .
In the current study almost all (96.6%) farmers are knows that how many times they have sprayed the pesticide. A study conducted at Nigeria 15 and Indonesia 16 found the similar opinion.

Knowledge on Pesticide and Containers Disposal
We came out in the interesting findings that pesticide residue will exists in the air, soil, surface and ground water and in crops. Similar findings found in Kuwait 17 , Spain 18 and Sweden 19 . In our study majority (32.1%) of the farmers replied that they will throw the pesticide containers in garbage followed by burned the container. A study conducted at Tanzania 20 found the similar results.

Knowledge on Harmful Effects of Pesticides on Health
In our study majority of the farmers responded that they were aware about the adverse health effects of pesticide usage. The interesting findings found in rural village of Chikabalapur district South Karnataka 11 , United State of America 4 and in Northern Iran 21 .
Farmers opined that when they saw the pesticide poisoned person they will render the first-aid and take him to the hospital, the similar advice found in World health Organization report 2 .
Nearly half of the famers replied that they will wash their eyes with water when they met an accidental spillage of pesticide into eyes. The review study conducted by department of agriculture development along with Democritus University of Thrace at Greece found the similar findings 22 .

Knowledge on Symptoms and Signs Toxic Effect of Pesticide
In the current study nearly half (45.7%) of the farmers replied that pesticide will enter into the body through nose, skin, mouth and eyes. The similar study conducted in Sweden showed that pesticide will enter into body through skin 19 . Similar results found in studies conducted at Palestine 10 and in Uganda 23 . Among the 265 farmers majority of them replied as skin irritation and irregular heartbeat are symptoms and signs of the pesticide harmful effects on health. The similar findings found in Kuwait 17 .
In our findings 25.3% of the farmers opined that headache was a common symptom of pesticide usage. Similar results found in Uganda 23 and in Indonesia study 24 .

Conclusion
In our study majority of the farmers aware about the pesticide usage but only few of them are aware about harmful effects of the pesticide usage on health. Henceforth continuous education provision on proper mixing or spraying would increase their knowledge and helps to avoid the harmful consequence on health.

Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge the Master of Public Health Scholars of Karnataka State Rural Development and Panchayat Raj University, Gadag for helping the data collection and Vice Chancellor (Acting) and Registrar of our university Prof. Dr. S. V. Nadagoudar and Honorary Professor Dr. Suresh Kishan Rao for their support to conduct this research.