Elsevier

Toxicology

Volume 198, Issues 1–3, 20 May 2004, Pages 83-90
Toxicology

Pesticide exposure—Indian scene

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2004.01.021Get rights and content

Abstract

Use of pesticides in India began in 1948 when DDT was imported for malaria control and BHC for locust control. India started pesticide production with manufacturing plant for DDT and benzene hexachloride (BHC) (HCH) in the year 1952. In 1958, India was producing over 5000 metric tonnes of pesticides. Currently, there are approximately 145 pesticides registered for use, and production has increased to approximately 85,000 metric tonnes. Rampant use of these chemicals has given rise to several short-term and long-term adverse effects of these chemicals. The first report of poisoning due to pesticides in India came from Kerala in 1958 where, over 100 people died after consuming wheat flour contaminated with parathion. Subsequently several cases of pesticide-poisoning including the Bhopal disaster have been reported.

Despite the fact that the consumption of pesticides in India is still very low, about 0.5 kg/ha of pesticides against 6.60 and 12.0 kg/ha in Korea and Japan, respectively, there has been a widespread contamination of food commodities with pesticide residues, basically due to non-judicious use of pesticides. In India, 51% of food commodities are contaminated with pesticide residues and out of these, 20% have pesticides residues above the maximum residue level values on a worldwide basis. It has been observed that their long-term, low-dose exposure are increasingly linked to human health effects such as immune-suppression, hormone disruption, diminished intelligence, reproductive abnormalities, and cancer. In this light, problems of pesticide safety, regulation of pesticide use, use of biotechnology, and biopesticides, and use of pesticides obtained from natural plant sources such as neem extracts are some of the future strategies for minimizing human exposure to pesticides.

Introduction

Ever since the dawn of civilization, it has been the major task of man to engage in a continuous endeavor to improve his living conditions. One of the main tasks in which human beings have been engaged is securing relief from hunger, one of the basic human needs. Today India is engaged in the gigantic task of feeding over 1000 million people and a huge cattle population on which the poor farmer is dependent for his livelihood. Secondly, the control of insects, weeds, fungi and other pests of economic or public health is of utmost importance to our government. The task would have been impossible but for the Green Revolution of 1960, which has given reasonable hope for the country being not only self sufficient in the production of adequate food and fodder for feeding its teeming human and animal population but has become the largest producer of some important commodities. On the other side, pesticides have given rise to serious problems (Gupta, 1989). With a shuddering chill in the spine we recall the horror of Bhopal. The catastrophe, resulting from the leakage of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas from the pesticide factory of Union Carbide Limited at Bhopal in the morning hours of 3 December, 1984, in which thousands of animals and human beings died, will never be forgotten.

Most of the chlorinated non-degradable pesticides leave residues in various living systems for prolonged periods of their life span and are presumably responsible for a variety of known and unknown toxic symptoms (Gupta, 1985). Even when present in minute quantities, their variety, toxicity, and persistence have an adverse effect on ecological systems such as birds, fish, and trees with which human welfare is inseparably bound (Gupta, 1986). Therefore, the thrust of this discussion will be to review the health hazards associated with pesticide use and recommend future strategies for alternative use of pesticides, and to develop health package based upon rational use of pesticides.

Section snippets

Consumption of pesticides in India

The main use of pesticides in India is in agriculture and public health sector to combat the various pests and diseases that affect man. To achieve this goal, the production of basic pesticides commenced in 1952 with the manufacture of benzene hexachloride (BHC), followed by DDT. Since then, the production of pesticides has increase tremendously. In 1958, India produced over 5000 metric tonnes of pesticides, especially insecticides like DDT and BHC (HCH). In the mid-nineties, about 145

Trends in pesticide use

The worldwide consumption of pesticides is about two million tonnes per year, of which 24% is consumed in the USA alone, 45% in Europe and 25% in the rest of the world. India’s share is just 3.75%. The usage of pesticides in India is only 0.5 kg/ha, while in Korea and Japan, it is 6.6 and 12.0 kg/ha, respectively. Currently, the pesticides are being used on 25% of the cultivated area. The three commonly used pesticides, HCH (only gamma-HCH is allowed), DDT and malathion account for 70% of the

Poisoning from pesticides

The rampant use of pesticides has played havoc with human and other life forms. There is a serious hurdle in documentation because of lack of systematic and authentic data on poisonings. Pesticides account for a small but significant fraction of acute human poisonings. There has been a number of outbreaks of accidental poisoning by pesticides that deserve special mention. In India, the first report of poisoning due to pesticides was from Kerala in 1958, where over 100 people died after

Bhopal tragedy

The Bhopal gas tragedy is a catastrophe that has no parallel in industry history. In the early morning of 3 December, 1984 a rolling wind carried a poisonous gray cloud past the wall of the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. An estimated 8000 or more people died (official figure 2500). More than 4000 animals died within minutes of exposure to the gas and almost 15,000 animals suffered the toxic gas effect while surviving (over three times the officially announced total). The

Health hazards of occupational exposure

In addition to intentional exposure (suicides and homicides), workers are exposed to occupational hazards in industrial settings and operational hazards during distribution and use in the field. Direct and indirect effect of pesticides on non-target species is beyond the scope of this presentation.

Pesticides are toxic chemicals and as such they represent risks to users. In developing countries where users are often illiterate, ill-trained, and lacking appropriate protective devices, the risks

Role of pesticides in public health

In the year 1948, DDT was imported for the control of diseases such as malaria, filariasis, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, cholera, and louse-borne typhus. The pesticides played a significant role in the control of vector-borne diseases. In 1947, when India became independent, there were 75 million cases of malaria with about 800,000 deaths. During this period the National Malaria Eradication Program was launched and in the first 7 years of its operation, the malaria cases were drastically

Assessment of human exposure

Pesticides have been primarily criticized for the presence of their residues in various samples of human blood, human fat, human milk, and fat samples, and food commodities. There is no denial of the fact that there is some element of risk involved in the use of pesticides like in any other product or service. Therefore, the pesticide-residue level is an indicator of the accidental exposure and/or average measure of body burden to persistent pesticides. This could either be due to direct

Conclusion

To sum up, based on limited knowledge with direct and indirect and/or inferential information on pesticides, there is a certain ambiguity of a situation in which people are undergoing life-long exposure. Therefore, there is every reason to properly educate farmers for judicious use of pesticides. Other alternatives such as use of biotechnology, use of biopesticides, and use of pesticides obtained from natural products such as neem should be encouraged.

References (35)

  • Agnihotri, N.P., 1999. Pesticide safety and monitoring. All India Coordinated Research Project on Pesticides Residues,...
  • Anonymous, 1981. Hexachlorocyclohexane. Toxicology data sheets series no. 3. Industrial Toxicology Research Centre,...
  • Anonymous, 1990. Public health-impact of pesticides used in agriculture. World Health Organization, Geneva, pp....
  • Anonymous, 2002. Demand pattern of pesticides for agriculture estimate 2001–2002 and forecast 2002–2003. Pestic. Inf....
  • Anonymous, 2003. More dengue deaths feared. The Times of India, New Delhi, 16...
  • Anonymous, 2003a. Pesticides in bottled water. The Times of India, New Delhi, 5...
  • Anonymous, 2003b. Chew this: pesticides hit people, not pests. The Times of India, New Delhi, 16...
  • Anonymous, 2003c. Colas fizz with pesticides. The Times of India, New Delhi, 6...
  • S.N Banerjee

    Agricultural production through increased pesticides usages

    Pesticides

    (1979)
  • Bhatnagar, V.K., 2001. Pesticide Pollution: Trends and Perspectives. ICMR Bulletin, vol. 31 (9). Division of...
  • Das, P., Das, S.K., Arya, H.P.S., Reddy, S.G., Mishra, A., 2002. Pest and disease management. In: Inventory of...
  • Dewan, A., Sayed, H.N., 1998. Acute poisonings due to agricultural pesticides reported to the NIOH Poison Information...
  • Environmental Protection Agency, 1986. Health and environmental effects profile for methyl isocyanate. Environmental...
  • P.C Gupta

    Neurotoxicity of chronic chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticide poisoning—a clinical and electro-encephalographic study in man

    Indian J. Med. Res.

    (1975)
  • Gupta, P.K., 1985. Pesticides. In: Gupta, P.K., Salunkhe, D.K. (Eds.), Modern Toxicology. Metropolitan Book Company,...
  • Gupta, P.K., 1986. Pesticides in the India environment. Interprint, New Delhi, pp....
  • Gupta, P.K., 1989. Pesticide production in India: an overview. In: Mishra, P.C. (Ed), Soil Pollution and Soil...
  • Cited by (332)

    • Hormonal Injustice: Environmental Toxicants as Drivers of Endocrine Health Disparities

      2023, Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics of North America
    • Agricultural pesticides – friends or foes to biosphere?

      2023, Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text