Seven steps to reduce chemical exposure

摘要

Kondinin Group members named farm chemicals as the most important health and safety issue affecting their farm businesses in the 2005 National Agricultural Survey. This article details how farmers can lower their risk and their families' and employees' risk of exposure to hazardous chemicals. Farmers can take seven simple steps to minimise the harmful effects of farm chemicals on their health and that of their children and employees. The harmful effects of exposure to hazardous farm chemicals range from short-term reversible effects like headaches, nausea and skin rashes to longer term irreversible damage to the central nervous system. Pesticides can impair male fertility, cause miscarriages in pregnant women and birth defects to babies. Many pesticides are very poisonous if swallowed and present a risk of accidental ingestion by farm children. But with a few simple steps farmers can reduce the risk of all of these harmful effects.