The Environmental and Social Costs of Improvement 23DBCP, which causes infertility in humans and the herbicide, paraquat, which is
carcinogenic and mutagenic. However, many synthetic pyrethroids, and modern
herbicides and fungicides, have very low toxicity and no known health effects.
In the industrialized countries, the major hazard lies in accidents. Even then,
fatalities at work are very rare – one a decade in the UK and eight a decade in
California – and there are many other more common causes of death on the farm.
There is, though, a relatively high incidence of ill health among those engaged in
applying pesticides. Farmers exposed to organophosphates during the dipping of
sheep, for example, appear increasingly to be suffering a wide range of sub-acute
health problems.
One problem is that the systems for recording pesticide poisoning vary within
and between countries, and are difficult to compare. In the UK, there are at least
four institutions collecting mortality and morbidity data, all giving different data
(Conway and Pretty, 1991; HSE, 1993). These suggest some 40–80 confirmed
cases each year. In California, a comprehensive system of reporting, perhaps the
best in the world, records some 1200–2000 cases each year (CFDA, passim). Over-
all the hazard in the industrialized countries presented by pesticides appears to be
not very different from that of other manufactured chemicals, such as pharmaceu-
ticals.
By far the greatest risk, though, is from pesticides in the home and garden
where children are most likely to suffer. In California alone, some 6–8000 children
of less than six years of age are treated for pesticide poisoning each year. In Britain,
some 600–1000 people need hospital treatment each year from home poisoning
(Conway and Pretty, 1991). Although, in this respect, pesticides are no different
from hazardous medicines, they are often not perceived as being in the same cat-
egory and are less carefully guarded. Nonetheless, there continues to be consider-
able public concern over the risks arising from exposure to pesticides, in particular
through accidental spraying and spray drift, or from residues in foodstuffs.
Greater hazards in developing world countries
In developing world countries, mortality and illness due to pesticides are much
more common relative to the amount of pesticide used. Lack of legislation, wide-
spread misunderstanding of the hazards involved, poor labelling and the discom-
fort of wearing full protective clothing in hot climates, all greatly increase the
hazard both to agricultural workers and to the general public (Conway and Pretty,
1991). Moreover, many pesticides known to be highly hazardous and either banned
or severely restricted in the industrialized countries, such as parathion, mevinphos
and endrin, are widely available. In 1988, the Food and Drug Administration of
the US found that 5 per cent of some 10,000 imported foods when tested were
found to contain residues of products banned in the US, indicating continued
widespread export and use of such compounds (GAO, 1989).
It is very difficult to say how many people in the South are affected by pesticide
poisoning. This is partly because reporting mechanisms are weak, with farmers