Minister of Labour and Social Partnership Relations Colin Jordan has encouraged farm owners and managers to establish health and safety officers on their properties to ensure occupational safety and health protocols are heeded.
He made the call as he delivered remarks at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security’s launch of the Pesticide Container Management Scheme at the Spring Hall Land Lease Project in St Lucy on Wednesday.
Jordan said: “I want to suggest that you need somebody who will keep you on the straight and narrow. Somebody who will remind you from time to time that you have a responsibility, not just to others, but also to yourself, to maintain good safety and health practices.”
He reminded farmers that containers with pesticides and other hazardous materials have significant occupational safety and health implications and should be handled with care. In fact, Jordan said that farmers who may be trained in dealing with pesticides have a responsibility to protect others who may eventually come into contact with those chemical-filled containers.
“From an occupational safety and health perspective, we know that exposure to these chemical compounds can impact people on their skin, they can impact us in terms of our respiratory systems, they can also impact us internally if those substances are ingested.
“We want, not just from a public health pandemic perspective but also from a day-to-day farming perspective, to make sure that people are safe, that they are engaging in safe work practices. You, as farmers, and also personnel from the Ministry of Agriculture have a role to play in reducing the risks to occupational safety and health,” Jordan said.
Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security Peter Phillips said the Pesticide Container Management Scheme was designed to advocate for the proper disposal of empty pesticide containers to safeguard the health and well-being of all. He said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is working with the Pesticides Control Unit of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Stakeholder Committee to bring awareness to the potential hazards of pesticide containers.
Phillips, who is also the Member of Parliament for St Lucy, said: “I, therefore, appeal to the farmers at Spring Hall to exercise care and responsibility in disposing of the pesticide containers. For if the containers are left lying around in fields, remnants of the pesticide in this concentrated form can cause contamination to crops or can be easily obtained by persons, especially children, resulting, God forbid, in unintentional poisoning.” (AH)
