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Do Pesticide Sellers Make Farmers Sick? Health, Information Sources and Adoption of Technology in Bangladesh*

Shamma Adeeb Alam*
Department of International Studies, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA

Hendrik Wolff**
Department of Economics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA; Email: hgwolff@uw.edu

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Modern agriculture heavily depends on the use of pesticides and has successfully increased productivity, but also led to increasing concerns regarding farmers’ health. Mishandling of pesticides continues to pose a serious health problem for farmers especially in developing countries. This paper describes supply side and demand side regulations for pesticide handling, health outcomes and adoption of health technologies using a detailed household level dataset from Bangladesh. The dataset is unique as it spans the chain from: ‘where do farmers obtain information from’, ‘which precautionary tools (i.e. masks, gloves) are used’ and ‘what are subsequent health outcomes after spraying’. Previous studies hypothesized that pesticide sellers in developing countries misguide farmers regarding pesticide use. On the other hand, government field extension workers reduce pesticide exposure by training farmers in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques. In our dataset it cannot confirm these hypotheses. In contrast, it find that those farmers that use information from pesticide sellers increase the adoption of precautionary tools. These same farmers also enjoy subsequently improved health outcomes. Further, this results show that the agricultural extension program does not significantly impact technology adoption or health. It was found instead evidence of social learning as peer farmers, especially those trained in handling pesticides, have a substantial influence.

Keywords: Pesticide, Health, Technology adoption, Pesticide sellers, Bangladesh

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Program Area: Pest Management

Commodity: Pesticide

Objectives:

In this study it was added to this literature and present the first paper to examine if social learning from peers influences the adoption of health technology in agriculture.

Methodology:

This a review paper and discussed detail on the following titles- 1. Introduction; 2. Information Flows in Bangladesh; 3. Data; 4. Estimation Strategy and Summary Statistics.

This paper uses the 2003 Bangladesh Pesticide Use Survey (BPUS) conducted by the World Bank. The survey interviewed 771 farmers in 41 communities (sub-districts) across eleven districts, where pesticide intensive crops are produced, and farmers are randomly selected within these districts.8 BPUS is unique in design as it focuses on identifying the sources that inform farmers regarding many aspects of pesticide handling. In particular, detailed questions are asked with respect to the following five topics: information sources, farmers’ perceptions of risk, pesticide usage, precautionary behavior and health symptoms experienced after pesticide applications. To it knowledge, information with this level of detail regarding pesticide usage is not present in other surveys. All farmers apply pesticide themselves. Furthermore, 98 percent of the farmers report that they purchase the pesticides themselves from pesticide sellers. This is an important feature of the dataset because it shows that potential endogenous sorting into the contact with pesticide sellers is only a concern for the 2% of the farmers that do not purchase the pesticides themselves.

Source of Information: Report, JEL codes: Q1; Q18; I10; I15, Department of International Studies, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA

Article Link (Online Journal): http://faculty.washington.edu/hgwolff/AlamWolff.pdf

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Achievement/Findings:

This study has important policy implications. It show that pesticide sellers may be playing a crucial role for information dissemination that improves health in developing countries. Therefore, in future regulations, government may want to consider using the network of pesticide sellers present in rural areas, which are often difficult to reach via the extension workers. According to our results, sellers do raise awareness and are already present in all relevant agricultural rural areas. Over 50% of farmers report that they do not have access to masks or gloves. Therefore, supply side regulations can consider selling protective equipment through the network of pesticide sellers. Sellers would always be willing to market and sell protective equipment as long as it increases their profits. Here argue a similar strategy may work in the context of Bangladesh where the government could use the network of pesticide sellers to market and sell PPEs to farmers. For example a required bundling policy of sales of protective equipment together with pesticides (i.e. one mask per container) could increase awareness and the use of protective equipment. This results further suggest that the government should reexamine their demand side strategies with which extension workers are used to disseminate information. It do not find AFEWs having any significant influence on farmers. Finally, it find that the very small fraction of trained farmers have a particularly positive effect on peers suggesting that more targeted training programs to social multipliers could be valuable to enhance the information flow.

Knowledge Management: Report/Proceedings