Measuring pesticide ecological and health risks in West African agriculture to establish an enabling environment for sustainable intensification

Abstract

We outline an approach to pesticide risk assessment that is based upon surveys of pesticide use throughout West Africa. We have developed and used new risk assessment models to provide, to our knowledge, the first detailed, geographically extensive, scientifically based analysis of pesticide risks for this region. Human health risks from dermal exposure to adults and children are severe enough in many crops to require long periods of up to three weeks when entry to fields should be restricted. This is impractical in terms of crop management, and regulatory action is needed to remove these pesticides from the marketplace. We also found widespread risks to terrestrial and aquatic wildlife throughout the region, and if these results were extrapolated to all similar irrigated perimeters in the Senegal and Niger River Basins, they suggest that pesticides could pose a significant threat to regional biodiversity. Our analyses are presented at the regional, national and village levels to promote regulatory advances but also local risk communication and management. Without progress in pesticide risk management, supported by participatory farmer education, West African agriculture provides a weak context for the sustainable intensification of agricultural production or for the adoption of new crop technologies.

Influence of the agrochemicals used for rice and vegetable cultivation on insecticide resistance in malaria vectors in southern Côte d’Ivoire

“…A corollary can be observed for example, between the high dependence of farmers to pyrethroid insecticides and the high frequency of resistance to these insecticides observed in mosquitoes although pyrethroids are also mainly used in this area for vector control. In addition to the dependence on the same products (lambdacyhalothrin, cypermethrin, glyphosate), other factors contributing to the misusage of pesticides could be identified:The level of education: the great majority of the famers surveyed were illiterate and therefore could not read and understand labels, confirming what was observed by other authors [20, 21]. This limits the perceptions of users of environmental and health risks, but also the potential for written information on chemicals to be accurately used;…”

Indicators of agricultural intensity and intensification: a review of the literature

“…Farm Quantify agricultural inputs related Herzog et al, 2006;Reidsma et al, 2006;Geiger et al, 2010; to land productivity Armengot et al, 2011;Fumagalli et al, 2011;Nemecek et al, 2011;Dietrich et al, 2012;Teillard et al, 2012;Gaudino et al, 2014;Jepson et al, 2014LUI + multidiversity/biodiversity Flynn et al, 2009Kleijn et al, 2009;Snapp et al, 2010;Allan et al, 2014;Egorov et al, 2014 Global to local Land use changes Foley, 2005;Reidsma et al, 2006;Serra et al, 2008;Chen et al, 2009;Rudel et al, 2009;Yu et al, 2010;Temme and Verbug, 2011;Salvati and Tombolini, 2013;Kandziora et al, 2014 Regional Land use change model: CLUE model Verburg et al, 2002;Lima et al, 2011 Continental Scenarios of future agricultural land use Rounsevell et al, 2003;Rounsevell et al, 2005;Audsley et al, 2006 Global to local Model simulations + Crop yields; Lobell et al, 2009;Ribeiro et al, 2014 Modelling farming system dynamics Global to local Intensity analysis Aldwaik and Pontius, 2012;Huang et al, 2012 Global to local Changes in land use and changes in yields Ewers et al, 2009;Barretto et al, 2013 National Land use change + HANPP Erb, 2012;Erb, 2014 National HANPP Kraussmann et al, 2012 Local Urban expansion/population …”

“…Many studies tackling the environmental impacts of agricultural intensity have focused on a single component, such as nitrogen input (Kleijn et al, 2009;Fumagalli et al, 2011;Temme and Verburg, 2011;Overmars et al, 2014) or pesticides (Geiger et al, 2010;Jepson et al, 2014). Others have used proxy indicators of agricultural intensity, such as yield or profitability (Caraveli, 2000;Stoate et al, 2009;Schneider et al, 2011;Kuemmerle et al, 2013;Niedertscheider and Erb, 2014) or the relative amount of arable fields (Schneider et al, 2011;Tuck et al, 2014).…”

Silicone wristbands detect individuals' pesticide exposures in West Africa

“…Although there is very low residual uncertainty associated with these pesticide risks to human health and the environment throughout West Africa [8], direct measurements of personal exposure have not yet been published. The lack of direct analysis of human and environmental exposures is a result of low capacity for chemical analysis in the region, and the limited suitability of many of the available methods of monitoring [6,9]. …”