Sustainable Agriculture and Food: Four volume set (Earthscan Reference Collections)

Incidence of Acute Pesticide Poisoning Among Cotton Growers in India 109

(‘extremely hazardous’) scored 1 point, class 1b (‘highly hazardous’) points 2,

class II (‘moderately hazardous’) points 3 and class III (‘slightly hazardous’)

points 4. Pesticides unlikely to present acute hazard in normal use (class U)

were assigned with a score of 5 points.

• Exposure time: the duration in hours of the working session.


• Volume: the final volume of the spraying solution expressed in litres.


• Operation: the activity performed during the working session.


• Profession: The variable referred to whether the respondents were hired to apply
  pesticides in others’ fields, in addition to their own.

The mean/median of the #S&S associated with the different categories of pesticide
toxicity, the severity class and the exposure time is given Table 5.5. The distribution of
the severity class by gender across operation performed (Table 5.6) showed that spray-
ing and mixing were key exposure activities with a very similar incidence of severe
poisoning. During mixing operations, the respondents prepared chemical solutions in
rapid succession at close time intervals. Between mixing sessions, the respondents

Table 5.5 Association between #S&S and severity classes, pesticide toxicity and

exposure time

Severity

class

#S&S Mean/

Median

P. Toxicity

(WHO class)

#S&S

Mean/Median

Exposure

Time (hours)

#.S&S Mean/

Median

No S&S 0/0 u 0.6/0 1–2 1.8/2

Mild 1.9/2 3 1.4/1 3–4 2.0/2

Moderate 4.0/4 2 2.7/2 5–6 2.4/2

Severe 8.4/8 Ib 3.0/2 7–8 4.8/5

Ia 2.9/3 9 or 12 8.4/9

Table 5.6 Distribution of the severity classes among operations by gender expressed in

percentages and total number of events in brackets

% (No.) Mixing Mixing +

fieldwork Fieldwork Spraying

Spraying +

fieldwork Total

No S&S Men 2(2) 0(0) 0(0) 1(1) 3(1) 1(4)

Women 8(7) 0(0) 57(16) 19(26) 0(0) 15(49)

Mild Men 4(3) 0(0) 0(0) 41(55) 0(0) 18(58)

Women 49(42) 10(4) 43(12) 3(4) 19(7) 21(69)

Moderate Men 1(1) 0(0) 0(0) 24(32) 60(21) 17(54)

Women 31(27) 80(31) 0(0) 8(10) 5(2) 22(70)

Severe Men 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) 4(6) 11(4) 3(10)

Women 5(4) 10(4) 0(0) 0 3(1) 3(9)

Total 100(86) 100(39) 100(28) 100(134) 100(36) (323)