Conventional farming practices rely on pesticides to maintain adequate yield production levels. Spraying these dangerous chemicals requires very careful managing and farmers must wear appropriate protective gear. Rural residents living next door to farms can also be exposed to pesticide drift. Unfortunately, through chronic exposure and accidents, pesticides are a major global killer. Nearly 1,000 people die every day from acute pesticide poisoning and many more suffer from chronic ill health, such as cancers like leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, neurological diseases and reproductive problems including infertility, miscarriage and birth defects.
Certain countries with less access to protective gear and weaker pesticide regulations will have even higher numbers of poisonings, with farmers and surrounding residents more likely to be exposed to harsher chemicals which are banned in the UK. Read about the latest figures on global pesticide poisonings here.
People and the natural environment are also being exposed to potentially harmful mixtures of pesticides through run off and residue. These mixtures appear in and on our food, water and soil and can affect the health of both humans and wildlife. There is a growing body of evidence that pesticides can become more harmful when combined, a phenomenon known as the ‘cocktail effect’. Despite this, the regulatory system designed to protect us from pesticides looks at individual chemicals and safety assessments are only carried out for one pesticide at a time.