An Argentine government agency is carrying out a program to teach students in rural primary schools in the western province of Mendoza about the safe handling of pesticides. The educational program on the safe use of these chemical products is based on the idea that “by educating children we will reach their parents,” Maximiliano Caballero of the National Institute of Industrial Technology told Tierramérica.

The program is being carried out in Mendoza at the request of the Department of Toxicology at the local branch of the Ministry of Health. Of the 103 cases of pesticide poisoning reported in 2010 in Argentina, 49 took place in the province of Mendoza and almost half involved children, explained Caballero.

Children and adolescents are not only exposed to these toxic substances because they live in rural areas, but also because some of them work alongside their parents in agriculture and are therefore handling pesticides.