Farmers put selves, families at risk with careless pesticide use

Farmers put selves, families at risk with careless pesticide use (12-03-2008) Pesticides must be used with caution or farmers run the risk of harming themselves and their crops. — VNA/VNS Photo Lan Xuan HA NOI — Farmers are putting themselves and others at risk through the haphazard storage of dangerous chemicals. Health Ministry officer Tran Thi Ngoc Lan warns that home poisonings are common because there is little difference between containers for the chemicals and those for spices. The Preventative Health Department researcher has just spent three years investigating the storage of agricultural chemicals among 100 farming households in eight central and southern provinces. “Fifteen per cent of the 1,667 surveyed farmers kept chemicals in their kitchens and bedrooms,” she says. The latest National Plant Protection Institute survey also found 95 per cent of households questioned stored insecticide in their dwellings. Worse, 17 per cent of the chemicals were kept in the bedroom and 17 per cent in the kitchen. Sixty- five per cent of the families still keep insecticides in the toilet and cattle sheds. Most do not safely dispose of the containers but merely throw them away after use. 1,000 categories Eating from the wrong tin The Detoxification Centre in Ha Noi’s Bach Mai Hospital treated 170 patients who had been poisoned with agricultural chemicals last year. Most were admitted from northern provinces. Of these, 109 were poisoned by insecticide, 53 by agricultural chemicals and the remainder by weed killer. “We know that many were poisoned because they…