A Study On The Pesticide Use And Related Health Problems In Yuanmou County Of Yunnan Province

Background:Pesticides play an important role in modern agricultural production. A wide range of varieties of pesticide are available in the market in China,Pesticides are widely used in agricultural production, the application of those chemicals has been increased yearly. Use of pesticides reduce pests and diseases and ensure the agricultural production. Simultaneously, it increases farmers' income and also brings many health problems. Therefore, it is a very important to use pesticides reasonably and safely and to reduce environmental pollution and pesticide residues in agricultural products. Our Project aims to conduct a survey on status of pesticide use and related health problems in Yuanmou County of Yunnan Province.Objective:By surveying current status of pesticide use and related health problems in Yuanmou, we aimed at providing scientific evidence for the regulation of pesticides using, improving farmers' awareness and behavior of safe use of pesticides, reducing pesticides' harm on health and environment, and finally promoting farmers'healthy development in Yuanmou County.Methods:collection and analysis of existing pesticide policies and regulations; in-depth interview of local health workers, farmers and pesticide sellers; using photo voice technique in which16farmers were trained to use a camera to take photos of pesticide using during one season of tomato plantation; collection and analysis of pesticide bags and bottles used by the16fanners; conducting supervision and supplementary survey to the16farmers; and analysis of the photos.Result:the findings revealed that although the Yuanmou government has done a lot of work to control the sale and using of high poisoning pesticides, the problems of Pesticide abuse, particular the so-called low poisoning pesticide still exist. This is manifested in the following five aspects:1) Sales of highly toxic pesticide lack of strict supervision.2)The effect of propaganda and education on the banning of highly toxic pesticides is not obvious.3) Human health hazards of the new generation of pesticides still exist.4) IPM training has little effect on improving the farmers'behavior of rational use of pesticides.5) High frequency of pesticide spraying by farmers. There are still no effective measures that can fundamentally solve these problems.Recommendations:Yuanmou county government and the agricultural sector should continue to strengthen the control of sales and use of highly toxic pesticides, Take various approaches to publicize policies and regulations of highly toxic pesticides, and to educate farmers on the health impact of the new generation of pesticides, improve behavior of pesticide use of farmers and improve IPM training.