Climate Change, Pesticides and Health: Considering the Risks and Opportunities of Adaptation for Zimbabwean Smallholder Cotton Growers.

Cliff Zinyemba,Hanna-Andrea Rother,Emma Archer

doi:10.3390/ijerph18010121

Abstract

There is potential for increased pesticide-related adverse health outcomes in the agricultural sector linked to adaptive increases in pesticide use necessitated, in part, by climate change-related increases in pest populations. To understand the role of adaptation practices in pesticide use and health risks, this study assessed Zimbabwean smallholder cotton farmers’ adaptive responses linked to their climate change perceptions. In depth interviews were conducted with 50 farmers who had been growing cotton for at least 30 years. The study identified farmers’ adaptation practices that increased their pesticide use, as well as those that presented opportunities for reducing pesticide use through non-pesticide-dependent adaptation pathways. The findings show that due to perceived climate change impacts, such as a shorter growing season, farmers were adopting a range of adaptive practices. These included changes in pest management practices, such as increasing pesticide spraying frequencies due to keeping ratoon crops, which were increasing farmers’ overall pesticide use. Such incremental adaptive practices are potentially maladaptive, as they may increase farmers’ pesticide-related health risks. Other practices, however, such as reducing cotton acreage and diversifying crops, resulting in transformational adaptation, suggest the existence of opportunities for decreasing overall pesticide use or totally eliminating pesticides from the farming system.

Highlights

Pesticides are associated with a range of acute and chronic adverse human health effects that compromise health-related quality of life [1,2]
Chronic effects are associated with long-term pesticide exposure and can manifest in a range of forms, including carcinogenic, endocrine disrupting, reproductive, developmental, neurological, immunotoxic and genotoxic adverse health effects [5,6,7,8]
Thirty-six of the 50 interviews were conducted with male heads of households, who had indicated that it was they who had actively carried out pest management duties, such as pesticide spraying, on their farms in the past 30 years

Summary

Introduction

Pesticides are associated with a range of acute and chronic adverse human health effects that compromise health-related quality of life [1,2]. Chronic effects are associated with long-term pesticide exposure and can manifest in a range of forms, including carcinogenic, endocrine disrupting, reproductive, developmental, neurological, immunotoxic and genotoxic adverse health effects [5,6,7,8]. In addition, result in accelerated dissipation of pesticides by the processes of volatilisation and photodegradation [15,16,17]. To cope with these counteracting processes, farmers could

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion