Using Agrochemicals in Farming and Its Ecological Impact in Rural Areas in Eastern Bankura of West Bengal

Abstract

United Nations Hunger Task Force listed eight goals and conservation of nature and protection of environment is one of them. Different practices involved in use of agrochemicals like mishandling, indiscriminate use, disposal could have adverse health and environmental impact. This experiment was done in eight selected villages of Sonamukhi block in Bankura district of West Bengal with the main objectives of assessing the knowledge and practices regarding agrochemicals stewardship role performed at the end user level i.e. farmers; exploring the farmers perceptions of agrochemical use and its potential adverse effects on health and identifying socioeconomic variables which influence this role and perception. Two types of Methodology involved in this study among which participatory types are cross sectional survey, focus group discussions, key informant interviews along with descriptive statistics and Pearson Correlation Analysis. Pesticides which are highly hazardous according to WHO report, are very much in use for different purposes in the study area. All total of 300 farmers were interviewed, among them 20% stored agrochemicals in their homes prior to usage. Eighty percent of the respondents do not use anything to mix the chemicals and they do it bare hand, Unsafe dispose of empty sacs or containers of agrochemicals found in 40% of the respondents and whereas almost 25% of the respondents reused containers/sacks to store materials at homes. A minimal number of them i.e. only 5% of the respondents used sufficient personal protective equipment during application of agrochemicals. Participatory and bottom-up approaches like focus group discussion and key informant interviews divulged that awareness and perception regarding adverse effects of agrochemicals is moderate among the participants. The practice of handling of agrochemicals without proper protection and unsafe disposal of pesticide containers appears to be widely prevalent in the study villages. It was found the though respondent possess moderate knowledge of health and environmental hazard but the implementation of this perceived knowledge is very low. Among the different socioeconomic variables age and size of land holding has negative but significant, whereas education has shown positive and significant correlation with the use of Personal Protective Equipment. A holistic program for increasing awareness for safe management, handling and disposal of pesticides among both users and agricultural input dealers is required to address this important health and environmental problem.