Half of All World’s Farmers May Experience Pesticide Poisoning Each Year
For millions of farmers, the chemicals used to protect crops may be sickening the people who grow the world’s food.
A new global study estimates that 402 million to 433 million farmers and farmworkers experience unintentional acute pesticide poisoning every year—roughly 46% of the world’s estimated 934 million farmers.
The researchers describe the findings as evidence of a major global public health problem that has largely escaped attention.
The study, published in Frontiers in Public Health, defines unintentional acute pesticide poisoning as an illness or other health effect resulting from pesticide exposure within a short period after exposure. The study focuses on acute poisoning; it does not capture the potentially much larger burden of chronic disease associated with repeated exposure.
India Is Hardest Hit
The researchers analyzed publicly available data collected between 2006 and 2023. They estimate that pesticide poisoning causes about 11,000 deaths annually, with nearly 60% occurring in India. The largest estimated numbers of nonfatal poisonings occurred in South Asia, followed by Southeast Asia and East Africa. Burkina Faso had the highest estimated national incidence, with nearly 84% of farmers and farmworkers experiencing poisoning.
The numbers may actually be conservative. The researchers found major gaps in national reporting systems and noted that many agricultural workers who become ill never receive medical attention. In many countries, poisoning cases are not consistently diagnosed, recorded, or reported.
Pesticide use itself has been moving in the opposite direction from efforts to reduce exposure. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, agriculture used 3.73 million metric tons of pesticide active ingredients in 2023—about twice the amount used in 1990.
The FAO notes that pesticides can protect crops and yields but can also contaminate soil and water and harm nontarget plants, animals, and other organisms.
Pesticides remain an important agricultural tool. They protect crops from insects, weeds, fungi, and other pests and can prevent substantial crop losses. But the World Health Organization says agricultural workers are among those facing the greatest risks from exposure. Pesticides can enter the body through inhalation, ingestion, or contact with the skin and eyes.
Exposure does not necessarily end when spraying stops. Farmers and farmworkers can encounter residues on treated crops, contaminated equipment, clothing, soil, and water. WHO recommends reducing pesticide use when possible and using nonchemical pest-management approaches where practical.
The concern extends beyond an episode of nausea, dizziness, or other acute symptoms. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of 124 studies found a positive association between pesticide exposure and Parkinson’s disease, with occupational exposure associated with Parkinson’s across nearly all pesticide classes examined. The authors cautioned that substantial differences among studies mean more research is needed.
Research into occupational exposure also illustrates how widespread contact with pesticides can be. An analysis conducted through the International Agency for Research on Cancer examined 316,270 agricultural workers in three large prospective cohorts. Depending on the chemical group, pesticide exposure was identified in substantial proportions of the workers studied, although the researchers cautioned that different methods of measuring exposure can produce different estimates.
The new study did not examine the estimated 84 million children working in agriculture, nor did it assess chronic health effects.
A Call for Pesticide-Use Rules
The researchers are calling for standardized international surveillance of pesticide poisoning and implementation of recommendations to phase out highly hazardous pesticides. WHO has described exposure to highly hazardous pesticides as a major public-health concern, particularly because occupational exposure can cause acute and chronic health effects and because environmental contamination can expose people through food and drinking water.
The pesticide problem, then, is larger than the number of deaths recorded in hospitals and government statistics. Every year, hundreds of millions of agricultural workers may be experiencing the immediate consequences of chemical exposure—while the long-term consequences remain harder to see.
The question facing agriculture is no longer simply how to control pests. It is whether the world can produce food without making the people who produce it—and the ecosystems around them—pay the price.
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