Assessment of exposure of professional operators to pesticides

Hie Ling Wong; Dave Garthwaite; Carmel  Ramwell; Colin David Brown

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.11.127

Assessment of exposure of professional operators to pesticides

Hie Ling Wong, Dave Garthwaite, Carmel Ramwell, Colin David Brown

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This study investigates how field practices in handling and applying pesticides influence the long-term patterns of professional agricultural operators’ exposure to pesticides. It presents the first use of a comprehensive pesticide application dataset collected on behalf of the European Food Safety Authority with 50 operators selected to cover arable and orchard cropping systems in Greece, Lithuania and the UK. Exposure was predicted based on the harmonised Agricultural Operator Exposure Model (AOEM) and compared with Acceptable Operator Exposure Levels (AOELs). The amount of pesticides handled by individual operators across a cropping season was largest in the UK arable and orchard systems (median 580 and 437 kg active substance, respectively), intermediate for the arable systems in Greece and Lithuania (151 and 77 kg, respectively), and smallest in the Greek orchard system (22 kg). Overall, 30 of the 50 operators made at least one application within a day with predicted exposure greater than the AOEL. The rate of AOEL exceedance was greatest in the Greek cropping systems (8 orchard operators, 2.8-16% of total applications; 7 arable operators, 1.1-14% of total applications), and least for the Lithuanian arable system (2 operators, 2.9-4.5% of total applications). Instances in Greece when predicted exposure exceed the AOEL were strongly influenced by the widespread use of wettable powder formulations (>40% of the total pesticide active substance handled for 11 of the 20 Greek operators). In contrast, the total area of land treated with an active substance on a single day was more important in the UK and Lithuania (95th percentile observed value was 132 and 19 ha day-1 for UK arable and orchard systems, respectively). Study findings can be used to evaluate current assumptions in regulatory exposure calculations and to identify situations with potential risk that require further analysis including measurements of exposure to validate model estimations.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	874-882
Number of pages	9
Journal	Science of the Total Environment
Volume	619-620
Early online date	29 Nov 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.11.127
Publication status	Published - 1 Apr 2018

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10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.11.127

Wong et al 2017 Operator exposure
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy.
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Cite this

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title = "Assessment of exposure of professional operators to pesticides",

abstract = "This study investigates how field practices in handling and applying pesticides influence the long-term patterns of professional agricultural operators{\textquoteright} exposure to pesticides. It presents the first use of a comprehensive pesticide application dataset collected on behalf of the European Food Safety Authority with 50 operators selected to cover arable and orchard cropping systems in Greece, Lithuania and the UK. Exposure was predicted based on the harmonised Agricultural Operator Exposure Model (AOEM) and compared with Acceptable Operator Exposure Levels (AOELs). The amount of pesticides handled by individual operators across a cropping season was largest in the UK arable and orchard systems (median 580 and 437 kg active substance, respectively), intermediate for the arable systems in Greece and Lithuania (151 and 77 kg, respectively), and smallest in the Greek orchard system (22 kg). Overall, 30 of the 50 operators made at least one application within a day with predicted exposure greater than the AOEL. The rate of AOEL exceedance was greatest in the Greek cropping systems (8 orchard operators, 2.8-16% of total applications; 7 arable operators, 1.1-14% of total applications), and least for the Lithuanian arable system (2 operators, 2.9-4.5% of total applications). Instances in Greece when predicted exposure exceed the AOEL were strongly influenced by the widespread use of wettable powder formulations (>40% of the total pesticide active substance handled for 11 of the 20 Greek operators). In contrast, the total area of land treated with an active substance on a single day was more important in the UK and Lithuania (95th percentile observed value was 132 and 19 ha day-1 for UK arable and orchard systems, respectively). Study findings can be used to evaluate current assumptions in regulatory exposure calculations and to identify situations with potential risk that require further analysis including measurements of exposure to validate model estimations. ",

author = "Wong, {Hie Ling} and Dave Garthwaite and Carmel Ramwell and Brown, {Colin David}",

note = "{\textcopyright} 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher{\textquoteright}s self-archiving policy. ",

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