Issue |
BIO Web Conf.
Volume 131, 2024
6th International Conference on Tropical Resources and Sustainable Sciences (CTReSS 6.0)
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Article Number | 03009 | |
Number of page(s) | 8 | |
Section | Environmental, Social and Governance | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/bioconf/202413103009 | |
Published online | 15 October 2024 |
The influence of crop type on the exposure of nursery workers to pesticides
1 Faculty of Earth Science, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, 17600 Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia
2 Envionment & Sustainable Development Research Group, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Malaysia
3 UMK-Tropical Rainforest Research Centre (UMK-TRaCe), Faculty of Earth Science, Pulau Banding, 33000 Gerik, Perak, Malaysia
4 Institute for Artificial Intelligence & Big Data, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, 16100 Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan, Malaysia
* Corresponding author: hlwong@umk.edu.my
Several factors may influence the exposure of nursery workers to pesticides during their work. This study investigates the influence of crop type on potential exposure and associated health risks among ten nursery workers from ten different nurseries in Johor, Malaysia. Personal interviews and questionnaire surveys were used to collect various information from the selected nursery workers in August and September 2023, together with the collection of pesticide labels. The collected data were input parameters in the appropriate exposure model to quantify their daily exposure and then assessed against the regulatory limit. Overall, individuals treated 1-13 different plant species on 2-9 spray days with 1-4 products containing 1-3 active substances. Ornamental nursery workers had the highest estimated daily exposures (30 applications; mean: 0.05 mg kg-bw-1 day-1), followed by flowers (11 applications; mean: 0.02 mg kg-bw-1 day-1) and fruits (6 applications; mean: 0.01 mg kg-bw-1 day-1). Thirty applications exceeded the respective regulatory limits (ornamentals>flowers>fruits: 20>9>1), indicating a possible health risk. While the use of highly hazardous active substances and inappropriate protective measures were the significant risk factors, pesticide applications were primarily influenced by the crop type, which requires crop species-specific assessment among nursery workers.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2024
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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