HEALTH PROBLEMS AND DISEASE PATTERNS IN AGRICULTURE
Melvin L. Myers

http://www.ilo.org/encyclopedia/?doc&nd=857200033&nh=0 (the article)

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Agriculture covers many settings: family farms, including subsistence agriculture; large corporate farms called agribusiness and plantations.

Since all kinds of agriculture work is associated with a variety of health problems, I want to talk about agribusiness as agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various businesses involved in food production, including farming, seed supply, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesale and distribution, processing, marketing, and retail sales.

In the whole processes, large amount of harmful substances are produced. Firstly, I think is the chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These chemical fertilizers and pesticides seep into the earth and pollute groundwater and cause large number of lives in the water or soil die. Many land animals also affected by drinking the polluted water.

In America, Each year, an average of $270 million worth of wasted fertilizer flows down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, creating a "Dead Zone" of more than 5,000 square miles that is completely devoid of marine life.

The polluted water harms human healthy as well. As nitrate was contained in the polluted water, it causes a disease called Blue Baby Syndrome. It is a serious illness in infants which is caused when nitrate is converted into nitrite in the infant's body. Nitrite interferes with the oxygen carrying capacity of the child's blood (It replaces the oxygen on the red blood cells). This is an acute disease in that symptoms can develop rapidly in infants.
Most small villages in Syria lack adequate wastewater disposal systems, relying on individual household cesspits. This contributes to contamination of groundwater, which is often used, without treatment, for drinking. Extensive use of manure as fertilizer aggravates the problem as runoff seeps into aquifers. A major contaminant in such places is nitrate, which poses health risks, particularly for infants three months old and younger, as it leads to a diminished capacity of the blood to transport and transfer oxygen. Infants consequently suffer from the Blue Baby Syndrome. Residents of villages in the valleys of Syria hilly northeast coast are most prone, since villages’ upstream further increase the nitrate concentration in drinking water.

Those multinational agribusiness corporations even further extend the problem. environmental and healthy problem are getting worse as large area of water resouces are polluted and people are impacted by the using and drinking the water. Also, farmers do not well protect themselves from those chemical fertilizers and pesticides like wearing protective clothing. They are directly impacted by the harmful chemical substances.

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