ENVIRONMENT: New Diseases Stalk Farmers

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Judith Achieng'

NAIROBI, May 15 1998 (IPS) - For a long time, some economists have argued that the standard of living of the poor will improve faster if farmers in developing nations export flowers, fresh vegetables or fruits.

But environmentalists have warned that growing these highly perishable export crops usually comes with a price, considering the long-term effects of pesticides on crops and on people’s health and the risk of pollution by the airplanes that ferry them.

“There is no better example of degradation than the flower industry where remarkably high amounts of pesticides are applied usually inside green houses,” said Taka Hiraishi of the Nairobi- based United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).

He told journalists here this week that although the world has grown richer through lucrative trade in such commodities and widening markets for investments, environmentally related diseases are emerging as some of the most salient global issues today.

Upwards of five million workers in the developing world suffer acute poisoning every year due to severe exposure while applying pesticides, and millions more are exposed to lower but still dangerous levels. Furthermore, the extension of travel and trade is providing new opportunities for the spread or re-emergence of infectious diseases, says a new report published by the UNEP, UNDP and other institutions.

“Despite vast improvements in human health globally over the past several decades, with millions of people living longer, healthier lives, preventable illnessess and premature deaths are still occurring in shockingly large numbers in many regions of the world,” says the document.

“Even in developed countries, where pesticide regulations are stricter and protective gear for workers is more available than in developing countries, occupational exposures can be significant,” adds the report, titled ‘World Resources: A Guide to The Global Environment’.

Jointly published by UNEP, the World Bank, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Washington-based World Resources Institute, it underscores how the burden of increased preventable environment-related illnessess is borne differently by people living in developing and developed countries.

It points out that in the past two decades, some 30 ‘new’ infectious diseases have emerged such as lyme disease and the rare haemorrhagic fever ebola, while previously controlled diseases have returned with a vengeance.

With the increasing income gap between the rich and the poor is an emerging ‘health gap’ in which such preventable diseases are concentrated among the poorest segments of society.

“While the ‘poorest poor’ who live on less than 1 US dollar a day are increasingly under environmental threats linked to lack of adequate food, shelter, sanitation and health care, they suffer disproportionately from pollution since they are more exposed to overcrowded environments where exposures of harmful agents are