According to Degela, he has never faced any kind of serious health defect. “It has been three years since I started spraying pesticides on the farm-fields and I have never faced any serious damage to my health. Right after I finished spraying the chemicals in any given day, I drink two cups of milk,” he says.
The busy young man, who sprays the chemical, appeared to have less awareness of the side-effects of the toxic chemicals. He went on explaining that some types of chemicals have some effects on the skin. He added that it is preferable to use the protection devises as the chemicals might harm ones’ health sooner or later. However, Degela never received or had an offer of the protection device from his employers.
His responsibility on the farm-fields is mostly spraying the pesticide chemicals. His daily wage after he gets to spray a minimum of 200 liters of chemicals is only 50 birr. On top of that he doesn’t seem to know much about the importance of the protection devices.
The owner of the farm that Degela works on, Dereje Zewdu, 28, has been spraying pesticide chemicals for the past few years on his own cabbage and tomato farm.
The young farm owner, who grows 200 tons of cabbages on half a hectare of land and who has a little bit difficulty of hearing, seemed to know nothing about the dangerous sides of the chemicals of spraying in unprotected way. “I have never used a protection devise to spray any types of pesticide. No one in this neighborhood uses those protection devises. And the reason is we have good air conditioning,” he explained.
No matter how, Dereje seemed to know less about the impacts of the insecticide chemicals and using his common sense he drinks one liter of milk after he spends a whole day spraying.
The population of the small town of Meki is 262,000, among whom 18,322 are farmers, 2,000 of them females. In Meki, farmers are working on 52,000 hectares out of the total land size. About six thousands hectares of the farming land is being used to grow fruits and vegetables by some nine thousands of local farmers from. The place is known for having fertile land, which never faces soil and mineral erosion.
The place is suitable to grow fruits, vegetables, wheat, corn, teff, barley and white chick-peas. Though it depends on the quality of the seeds, about 380 tons of onion production can be collected from are hectare. And tomato production is 500 tons per hectare. The deputy manager and the agriculture head of Meki Dugeda wereda, Beriso Bekele, says that for better production each and every farmer from there uses pesticide chemicals.
However, it is known that on the labels of each and every bottled or packed pesticide chemicals the direction of using the chemicals along with the warning and caution is always presented. Nevertheless, none of the farmers that The Reporter interviewed in Meki seemed to be conscious or fully aware of the impacts and the future consequences of the toxic pesticides.
The impacts of the pesticides have been mentioned as the cause of health damage on farm workers and also referred as a lethal and sub-lethal impact on other non-target biota. Mental retardation, head cancer, genetically mutation, losing balance, anemia, heart problem, kidney and liver failure, skin problem, breast cancer, infertility, birth defect are a few of the health problems caused by the toxic chemical reactions resulted from the pesticides.
All the farmers that The Reporter interviewed said that no one has offered them to use any kind of protection devises or told them the severity of the damage that can happen to their health due to the unprotected or ignorant chemical spraying. However, some of them think that, using their common sense, they may perhaps face some kind of health complications through time.
“The chemical spraying starts from seed germination. After we plant the germinated seeds the ground we will keep on spraying the chemicals until they are three months old at a 15-day interval. The spraying process takes the whole day and I do not use any kind of protection device but I use some plastic to cover the some parts of my body. However, I do not cover the rest part of my body with anything,” says the 29-year-old farmer who owns two hectares of farmland and grows onion and tomato. The farmer got his land from his farmer father some six years ago and he personally sprayed the chemicals for two years.
“The reason that I am not using any kind of protection is that those organizations that provide the chemicals for us do not provide the protection devises as well. The issue is always there. People usually ask us whether we are using any kind of protection devises or not. The problem is that no one provides us with the devices and I personally believe that there will be some consequences that we are going to face in the future due to our negligence or unprotected trend of spraying the chemicals,” he went on explaining.
Some of the daily laborers that are hired by the farm owners faced some problems with their respiratory systems and with their skins. Some of them say that they think that they have adapted themselves to the toxic chemicals and they sometimes eat the sprayed tomato from the farm a few minutes later after they had sprayed the chemicals.
In Meki, the nine-year-old Meki Batu Fruit and Vegetables Growers’ Cooperative Union with 135 associations just started providing the protective devises two years ago. The union is responsible to facilitate credit, training, information, pesticide chemical and also protection devises for the farmers. Etefa Getahun, manager of the union, explained that the union provides more than six thousands liters and 15 thousand tones of pesticide chemicals for sale per year. “In three months period, the plant might need 18-24 times of chemical spraying. Some people have faced some problems, including death, because of the chemicals,” he says. Etefa added that some of the farmers are resistant to accept the use of the protection devises or might not be willing to spend their money on the protection devises. Either way, the problem lies on lack of awareness.
Tadesse Amera, secretary, pesticide stewardship association, says that the seven-month-old association is working to fill the gap that exists between stakeholders and the farmers in order to create awareness and control the existing or the upcoming problems. “People are committing suicide with pesticides. No matter how the sprayers seemed normal and healthy for the time being, they will be facing some defects in their health through time,” he says. The secretary, who is a PhD candidate in environmental communication, believes that much has never been done regarding the issue.
The stewardship association is planning to work on creating awareness and enforcing some laws on the pesticide providers that they must provide protective devices. “We know that the pesticides have an acute or chronic poisonings on those people who worked on spraying the chemicals,” Tadesse says. He went on to explain that some of the protection devises are not designed or made for countries in tropical areas like Ethiopia. Beside the shortage or the negligence of providing protection devises some of them like the boots and the coveralls must be redesigned in order to make them useful here, Tadesse went on explaining.
The stewardship association that is formed to address the issue of preventing the impacts of pesticides on the environment and public health is less than one year old while the pesticide chemicals have been introduced into the country more than four decades ago and serious measures has never been taken in order to create awareness of impacts of pesticides among the farmers.
