Perception of Pesticide Safety Behavior among Farmers in Tanggamus District Lampung Province, Indonesia

Abstract

The increasing trend of pesticide use has a negative impact on the environment, including on human health. The safe behavior of using pesticides is useful for maintaining the health status of farmers. The research objective was to explore perception of pesticide safety behaviour among farmers in Tanggamus District. The research design used a qualitative study. Informant of this study were farmers (n=9) in Sumberrejo Village and Gisting Village (n=13), Tanggamus District. Data were collected by Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Analysis data used triangulation of sources, methods, and theories as well as data. The results, we found that most farmers perceived pesticide as medicine. Farmers are felt health problem such as blurred vision, sore eyes, dyspnoe, skin allergy, itching, sinkope, nausea, myalgia and numbness but they feel immune to the symptoms caused by pesticides. The behavior of farmers in the preparation, risk for health problems are land area, duration of working, duration of spraying. Risk behaviour while spraying were used to wearing only long sleeves, washing hands after spraying, measuring pesticides using bottle caps and mixing more than 3 types of pesticides. After spraying, farmer store disposal pesticide in kitchen, take a shower when finish spraying and use the work uniform for the next day. Health promotion efforts are needed regarding the proper application of pesticides, the use of complete PPE and personal hygiene practices.