Abstract
All across the globe, India is considered as an agricultural nation because its agro products drive the economy. An increase in population growth and a hike in food demands lead to the use of hazardous chemicals in farm fields. An in-depth field survey in Northern India was conducted to understand the types of agrochemicals that were used, farmers' knowledge about their safe handling, and their practices on its usage. Ninety-two responders (primarily farmers) from 37 districts of 12 states were interviewed to collect the information. The library containing 58 compounds as toxic spray constituents were developed and further screened in-silico for ADMET, drug-likeness, toxicity prediction, and molecular docking against their target actions in the human system. Glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) was selected as target protein showing the best-docked score with Bordeaux, Indoxacarb, Cyphenothrin, Deltamethrin, and Beta-cyfluthrin. The study revealed various adverse effects on human health and advocated provisions of alternative solutions such as using GST as a binding agents to hold the toxic chemicals out of living system and eventually saves valuable lives of the farmers.
Highlights
In India, a large population depends on agriculture and allied industries, for it is the population's primary source of livelihood
The current study includes a questionnaire from various responders mainly farmers, statistical as well as chemical analyses of these reported cidal agrochemicals in order to find the most prominent and harmful sprays used in the northern region of India
The statical interpretation of data revealed that most of the respondents interviewed are in 41–50 years age group
Summary
In India, a large population depends on agriculture and allied industries, for it is the population's primary source of livelihood. For better growth and production of crops use of agrochemicals seems to be unavoidable. Many of them are shown to be efficacious on crop production, they are hazardous for the environment and farmers due to occupational exposures (Gupta, 2004). The harmful effects of chemicals in use; such as fungicides, insecticides, herbicides; show chronic symptoms/reactions in farmers which sometimes have become lethal. Exposure to such harmful agrochemicals may be through contact with the skin, or ingestion and inhalation. The health effects may vary with the type of cidal chemicals used, for example, organophosphates and carbamates affect the nervous system. Carbamates can bring about neurotoxicity in the affected subjects while others may irritate the skin or eyes (Sarwar, 2015)
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