Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, according to a study published last week in Frontiers in Public Health, reports The Guardian.
Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by global organisation Pesticide Action Network, found there were an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.
Based on a worldwide farming population of 934m, this means about 46% of farmers are being poisoned annually. The greatest estimated numbers of poisonings was in southern Asia, followed by south-east Asia and east Africa.
The overall highest national incidence of poisoning was in Burkina Faso in west Africa, where nearly 84% of farmers and farm workers were reported to have experienced poisoning.
The study also found that an estimated 11 000 deaths occur every year due to pesticide poisoning, with nearly 60% of these in India.
Jayakumar Chelaton, the executive director of Pesticide Action Network India, said the research exposed a “crisis that can no longer be ignored”.
The authors of the study are calling for immediate action, including the implementation of a UN recommendation to phase out highly hazardous pesticides.
The study states that despite global efforts to highlight the dangers, pesticide use has continued to grow steadily, with 3.8m tonnes used in 2023, a doubling since 1990.
Dr Sheila Willis, head of international programmes at Pesticide Action Network UK, said: “Now that the scale of suffering has been revealed, farmers must be supported to access safer alternatives to protect their health and that of their families.”
The study did not consider the impact of pesticide exposure on the estimated 84m children working in agriculture and did not look at the long-term health impacts, with acute pesticide poisoning defined in the study as any illness or health effect experienced a short time after exposure.
Génon Jensen, executive director of the Health and Environment Alliance, said: “We are extremely concerned about the devastating health impacts from pesticide poisonings – both the acute impacts mentioned in this study but also chronic exposures suffered by farm workers and communities.”
Hélène Nicora, director general of Parkinson’s Europe, said there was also “overwhelming evidence” to suggest that Parkinson’s was an environmentally driven disease, with growing evidence linking pesticide exposure to the development of Parkinson’s.
The global burden of the disease is rising, with France, Germany and Italy all recognising it as an occupational disease for farmers.
Farmers and farm workers are mainly exposed to pesticides during preparation and application, as well as when touching treated crops and contaminated equipment or clothing.
Despite being the most robust study to date, the report highlights that available information on pesticide poisoning is inadequate, with the authors calling for standardised surveillance and reporting protocols so that pesticide-related poisonings become reliable and comparable.
Study details
Worldwide unintentional acute pesticide poisonings: reassessing the occupational and non-occupational burden
Wolfgang Boedeker, Meriel Watts, Peter Clausing, Emily Marquez.
Published in Frontiers in Public Health on 2 September 2026
Abstract
Background
Human poisoning by pesticides has long been seen as a severe public health problem. As early as 1990, a task force of the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimated that about one million unintentional pesticide poisonings occur annually, leading to approximately 20 000 deaths. In 2020, a systematic review found that about 385 million cases of unintentional, acute pesticide poisoning (UAPP) were occurring every year. Our aim is to update the annual global estimate of UAPP, based on a systematic review of available data.
Methods
We updated the existing systematic review of the scientific literature to include the period from 2006 to 2023 supplemented by mortality data from WHO. We extracted data from publications and the WHO Mortality Database, then performed country-wise synopses, and arrived at annual numbers of national UAPP. World-wide UAPP was estimated based on national figures and population data for worldwide regions. We conducted a sensitivity analysis to illustrate the effects of different study designs on the global estimate.
Results
In total 139 countries were covered, including 62 countries covered by 214 articles from 2006 to 2023, and an additional 77 countries covered by data from the WHO Mortality Database. Approximately 369 632 annual cases of UAPP were reported by the extracted publications, resulting from 9 182 fatalities and 360,450 non-fatal cases. On this basis, we estimate that about 402 to 433m cases of UAPP occur annually worldwide, including around 11 000 fatalities. Based on a worldwide farming population of approximately 934m, this means that an estimated 46% of farmers are being poisoned by pesticides every year. The greatest estimated number of non-fatal UAPP cases is in southern Asia, followed by south-eastern Asia and east Africa.
Conclusion
Along with other estimates, robust evidence is presented that acute pesticide poisoning is an ongoing major global public health challenge. There is an urgent need to recognise the high burden of non-fatal UAPP, particularly on farmers and farmworkers. The implementation of the recommendation by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), to phase out highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) could significantly reduce the burden of UAPP.
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