Abstract
Greenhouse farmers are exposed to many risk factors during work. This paper characterized the risk factors and discussed their health impacts among greenhouse farmers. Risk factors under greenhouse conditions emerged from pesticide application and greenhouse gas emission from soil during day. Risk factors among farmers were determined by recording toxicity symptoms, acute and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study targeted 67 greenhouses in Gaza Strip and found 169 farmers doing many agricultural activities without protective clothes. We documented nine highly toxic insecticides and five moderately toxic fungicides being applied for insect and fungal control. A large number of farmers (55%) revealed that they visited respiratory health clinic quite two to three times a month immediately after insecticide application. About 8.88% (n = 15) of farmers stated that they had unrecoverable lung disease due to working in greenhouses during winter season. Personal health records of farmers showed variety of cholinergic symptoms, severe reduction on acetyl choline esterase activity (ACHE), many cases of COPD and some pneumonia cases. Classification of farmers according to risk factors indicates that 18% of farmers are at high risk due to extreme to insecticides. It is recommended to seasonally investigate the activity of ACHE of greenhouse farmers and to routinely check their chests and lungs to avoid any potential health risk factors due to works in greenhouse environment.
Highlights
IntroductionMany authors tried hard to reduce health risks associated with pesticide application
They indicated that pesticide spray processes were applied mechanically using high volume techniques at the several cases of pest control whereas manual applications were occasionally applied by farmers using low volume technique
We found about 11 insecticides are commonly used in greenhouses for insects, nematodes and mites control, with application rates ranged from 1 2.5 kg/ha (Table 1)
Summary
Many authors tried hard to reduce health risks associated with pesticide application. Several authors [30] [31] [32] indicated the reduction of erythrocyte acetylcholinesterase as a potential health risk in greenhouse workers due to occupational pesticide exposure. They found methamidophos-treated groups had significantly lower butyrylcholinesterase and paraoxonase activities. Liu et al [33] evaluated the prevalence of farmer’s lung disease (FLD) and the potential risk factors for FLD among Chinese greenhouse farmers. This study was initiated to answer the following questions: 1) what are risk factors among greenhouse farmers in Gaza? 2 what are health impacts of these factors? and 3) what can be done to reduce the impacts of risk factors?
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