If most pesticide poisoning cases are due to misuse or abuse by users, how can companies be blamed?
The pesticide industry itself has most of the information about the risks of a given pesticide as well as the resources to prevent most misuse and abuse. But without public pressure, they make little effort to do so. Pesticides are still being sold with dangerously inadequate labels and packing, and by poorly trained sales personnel who are keen to sell and therefore give misleading advice. • But isn’t the pesticide industry carrying out pesticide safety training activities? Yes, in some places. But such training enhance the notion that chemicals are the only effective method of pest control, an approach which promotes industry products. Alternative methods of pest control are seldom on the curriculums. • Doesn’t the pesticide industry provide badly needed jobs in the Third World? Pesticide production is capital?intensive, and so is pesticide use. That means that less rather than more people are employed when agriculture becomes chemical-dependent. Where there is a surplus of labour, a
