Risk Assessment And Occupational Exposure Of Pesticides Among Paddy Farmers In Kampung Permatang Keriang, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
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Date
2016-02
Authors
Ahmad, Nur Anis
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
This study aims to assess potential risks, exposure symptoms of pesticides
and their relationship with farmers’ knowledge, attitude and practices (K.A.P) and
pesticide concentration levels in water samples. This cross-sectional study was
conducted in Kampung Permatang Keriang, Seberang Perai Utara, Pulau Pinang. A
total of thirty-eight farmers out of one hundred nineteen were involved during the
questionnaire session. Demographic information, knowledge, attitude and practices
of farmers were collected during questionnaire sessions. Ethical approval was
obtained from Human Research Ethics Committee USM [Ref: USM/JEPeM/279.3].
Chemical health risk assessments (CHRA) were conducted to sixteen respondents by
choosing four different pesticides that frequent used by farmers which were
buprofezin, chlorpyrifos, difenoconazole and lambda cyhalothrin. During CHRA,
environmental samples in terms of physical air parameters such as air velocity,
ambient temperature, relative humidity, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and dust
level as well as in-situ water parameters such as dissolve oxygen, pH, water
temperature and turbidity were collected. Concentrations of pesticide residues in preapplication
and post-application waters samples were determined using GC-MS.
From this study, it was found that, 97% of the respondents were male and 3% were
female with average ages between 36 until 40 years old. From the knowledge,
attitude and practices results, attitude showed the highest maximum score which is
83.10% with the mean of 41.55 and standard deviation of 4.69. Regression analysis results showed that farmers’ knowledge did not contribute to the practices during
mixing and handling pesticides otherwise attitudes was contributed to the practices of
farmers. From CHRA results, most of the respondents fall into categories of 3 and 4
for hazard rating (HR) and frequency rating (FR). For magnitude rating (MR), they
fall into categories 3 to 5. Risk rating was calculated based on risk matrix and most
of the respondents were within categories 3 to 5 which are highly exposed to the
pesticides. Furthermore, analysis of CHRA with knowledge, attitude and practices
showed that although respondents had high score in knowledge, attitude and practice;
however, in real field situation, respondents were still highly exposed to the
pesticides because of the improper use of personal protective equipment (PPE). From
the analysis of pesticide residue concentration in water sample, only difenoconazole
residue was detectable for pre-application with the concentration of 4.34 ppm and
6.64 ppm. For the post-application analysis, all of the pesticide residues were
detected. For post application, concentration of pesticide residues for difenoconazole
ranged between 36.00 ppm and 48.86 ppm, buprofezin ranged between 6.70 ppm and
33.96 ppm, while lambda cyhalothrin ranged between 6.10 ppm and 31.81 ppm and
chlorpyrifos ranged between 7.47 ppm and 20.29 ppm. It showed that, all of the
pesticide residues (for pre and post-application) exceeded the US Environmental
Protection Agency (US EPA) and European Union (EU) standard limits. Besides, all
the respondents were highly exposed to the dangers of pesticides based on the high
risk rating (RR) obtained from the CHRA assessment analysis and high amount of
pesticides residue concentration in the water samples. In order to minimize the
potential risk among respondents, several actions need to be taken towards good
agricultural pesticides practices such as the use of hazard and safety measures,
monitoring programme, awareness programme and alternative methods.
Description
Keywords
Paddy farmers