Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.
Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.
Based on a worldwide farming population of 934 million, this means approximately 46% of farmers are being poisoned every year. The greatest estimated number of poisonings was in southern Asia, followed by south-east Asia and east Africa.
The overall highest national incidence of poisoning was in Burkina Faso in west Africa, where nearly 84% of farmers and farm workers were reported to have experienced poisoning.
The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health on Wednesday, also found that an estimated 11,000 deaths occur every year due to pesticide poisoning, with nearly 60% of these in India.
Jayakumar Chelaton, the executive director of Pesticide Action Network India, said the research exposed a “crisis that can no longer be ignored”.
The authors of the study are calling for “immediate action”, including the implementation of a UN recommendation to phase out highly hazardous pesticides.
The study states that despite global efforts to highlight the dangers, pesticide use has continued to grow steadily, with 3.8m tonnes used in 2023, a doubling since 1990.
Dr Sheila Willis, the head of international programmes at Pesticide Action Network UK, said: “Now that the scale of suffering has been revealed, farmers must be supported to access safer alternatives to protect their health and that of their families.”
The study did not consider the impact of pesticide exposure on the estimated 84 million children working in agriculture and did not look at the long-term health impacts, with acute pesticide poisoning defined in the study as any illness or health effect experienced a short time after exposure.
Génon Jensen, the executive director of the Health and Environment Alliance, said: “We are extremely concerned about the devastating health impacts from pesticide poisonings – both the acute impacts mentioned in this study but also chronic exposures that farm workers and communities suffer.”
Hélène Nicora, the director general of Parkinson’s Europe, said there was also “overwhelming evidence” to suggest that Parkinson’s was an environmentally driven disease, with growing evidence linking pesticide exposure to the development of Parkinson’s.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder in which parts of the brain become damaged over time, affecting movement and balance. The global burden of the disease is rising, with France, Germany and Italy all recognising it as an occupational disease for farmers.
Farmers and farm workers are mainly exposed to pesticides during preparation and application, as well as when touching treated crops and contaminated equipment or clothing.
Speaking at a webinar organised by Friends of the Earth Europe earlier this year, Rendert Algra said he believed his Parkinson’s disease was linked to the pesticides he had used when working at his family farm in the Netherlands.
“Being the eldest son, I did all the spraying of pesticides in our fields for several years in a row,” he said.
Despite being the most robust study to date, the report highlights that available information on pesticide poisoning is inadequate, with the authors calling for standardised surveillance and reporting protocols so that pesticide-related poisonings become reliable and comparable.
Facts Only
* 402-433 million cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning occurred annually among farmers and farm workers between 2006 and 2023.
* This equates to approximately 46% of the worldwide farming population being poisoned every year.
* The greatest estimated number of poisonings occurred in southern Asia, followed by south-east Asia and east Africa.
* The highest national incidence was in Burkina Faso, where nearly 84% of farmers and workers reported poisoning.
* An estimated 11,000 deaths occur every year due to pesticide poisoning, with nearly 60% in India.
* Pesticide use reached 3.8 million tonnes in 2023, a doubling since 1990.
* Farmers and farm workers are mainly exposed during preparation, application, and contact with treated materials.
* Acute pesticide poisoning is defined as any illness or health effect experienced shortly after exposure.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The data reveals a significant gap between the scale of documented harm and the framework for understanding it, particularly concerning long-term consequences. The focus on acute poisoning provides an urgent call for immediate regulatory change, but this framing deliberately excludes chronic health impacts and the effects on vulnerable populations like children in agriculture. This omission shifts the immediate response toward symptom mitigation rather than systemic risk management. Furthermore, the connection drawn between pesticide exposure and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s introduces a layer of environmental health critique that extends beyond direct toxicity to encompass complex, long-term biological disruption within communities and worker populations. The call for standardized surveillance highlights a failure in data collection, suggesting that current methods are insufficient to capture the full scope of the problem effectively. This structure implies a pattern where immediate, quantifiable harm is prioritized over diffuse, yet profound, environmental health crises.
* BRIDGE QUESTIONS: How can surveillance protocols be designed to account for chronic exposures and developmental impacts rather than focusing solely on acute events? What systemic changes are necessary to integrate occupational health standards with broader environmental policy regarding agrochemicals? If the link to conditions like Parkinson's is established, what ethical responsibility does the industry have in mitigating multi-generational health risks?
Sentinel — Human
This text reads like a compilation of journalistic reporting heavily reliant on cited research and expert opinion, exhibiting the typical pattern of investigative journalism rather than synthetic generation.