Health hazards faced by vegetables growers in using pesticides in nadia district of West Bengal

Farmers who are cultivating vegetables, they are using maximum numbers and amount of pesticides compared to cereal crops per unit area. Plant protection is an exercise basically followed in any crop for control of insect-pests, diseases, weeds etc. to avoid economic losses. For proper application of pesticides –there are specific recommendations. Due to lack of awareness of farmers regarding those recommendations, they are using pesticides deviating its proper processes and considerations. As a result, they are facing health related problems. Keeping all these in view the present study was designed with objective to know the health hazards caused by chemical pesticides use by the vegetable growers.The present study was conducted in Nadia district of West Bengal. Nadia district was purposively selected for the study and Chakdah community development block of Kalyani sub division was randomly selected for the study. Rautari gram panchayat was selected randomly from all the gram panchayats of Chakdah community development block. Three villages namely Teghara, Ruppur and Rameswarpur was selected purposively as the villages were in close proximity. Complete enumeration of the farmers in the villages was attended. Farmers who were available up to three times were included in the sample. In this way 73 brinjal growers from Teghara, 62 pointed gourd growers from Ruppur and 69 cauliflower growers from Rameswarpur were selected for the study who grow crops in parcels of plots under bigger common field. In the present study, health hazards faced by the vegetable growers regarding the use of chemical pesticides were calculated. From the study it was observed that 48.03% and 51.47% respondents did not face any health issues during and after chemical pesticide application respectively. The main issues faced while applying pesticide were skin irritation (10.29%), eye irritation (13.23%), headache (9.31%) etc. and the issues faced after application of chemical pesticides include weakness (21.07%), vomiting (9.80%), skin irritation (7.84%) etc. To avoid the unnecessary use of pesticides, regulations regarding the use or pesticides and proper verification of the procedure should be carried out. Creation of awareness on the basis of family based training, sensitization through value and ethics based capacity building and utilization of religious and community leaders in this regard may be useful to overcome the issue. Various health hazards faced by the vegetables growers during and after application of the chemical pesticides were recorded. Therefore, the base level extension agencies should take proper measures on the basis of findings of the study to make their further extension programme more effective and steps should be taken to change the perception of the vegetable growers regarding the use of the safety measures.