Almost half of world’s farmers poisoned by pesticides every year, experts find

A farmer sprays pesticide on sesame fields in Burkina Faso, west Africa. Photograph: Alamy

Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found.

Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402-433m cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and farm workers every year.