Necessity of including the evaluation of pesticides impacts on farmworkers health in social LCA

Context The use of pesticides has been associated with threats to human health often due to the misapplication of the chemicals. Farmworkers may be exposed to pesticides either directly through contact with spray drift (via... [ view full abstract ]

Context
The use of pesticides has been associated with threats to human health often due to the misapplication of the chemicals.
Farmworkers may be exposed to pesticides either directly through contact with spray drift (via dermal or inhalation routes) or indirectly through contact with drift deposits (dermal or ingestion) or vapour drift arising from volatilisation of deposits.
When conceiving new crops systems, correctly assessing the magnitude of the health risk from pesticide exposures in the workplace should be mandatory
About a quarter of practical application of the SLCA method are case studies in the agricultural sector. This is why it is expected that SLCA will take this issue into account, considering the large share and high impact of pesticides on farmworkers health.
Objective
This work aims to demonstrate the necessity of developing a new model to assess impacts of pesticides exposure on farmworkers’ health. The authors suggest this model to be based on real practices implemented in the plantations.
Methodology
A systematic review of SLCA case studies in the agricultural sector was carried out by the authors, who have wondered whether and how impacts due to pesticides exposure were assessed. In a second step, it has been highlighted how the E-LCA methods deal with the issue of assessing pesticide exposure.
The general E-LCA models taken into account are:
• Eco-Indicator 99
• CML 2002
• EDIP 2003 (complementary with EDIP97).
• ReCiPe 2008 that represent an update of both Eco-Indicator 99 and CML 2002.
In the specific field of toxicity other IA methods (such as USEtox 1.0 and 2.0 and PestLCI 2.0) were considered. Given the close “filiation” between the different IA methods, the authors analysed only the ReCiPe and USEtox methods.
Findings and contributions
In the screened agri-food case studies, the agricultural phase is recognised as the most impactful on social sphere. Nevertheless, current methods don’t allow a proper assessment of pesticides impacts on farmworkers health, neither from the SLCA side, nor from the E-LCA one. The authors therefore proposed to building a new model, specific to each crop, to be included in SLCA to anticipate future impacts. It will be based on the expertise (at least 5 experts to be interviewed) to take into account practices. The aim of the model is to describe the possible cropping systems by a network of nodes, gathering several cause/effect chains between “situation” and exposure.