Risk Assessment of Human Exposure to Methidathion during Harvest of Cucumber in Green House

Farmers are generally expressed to pesticides through mixing loding, application activity and harvesting of crop after application of pesticides. The present work investigated the exposure and risk of furathiocarb to workers when harvesting of cucumber was carried out in green house after application of furathiocarb EC. Glove was used for the hand exposure assessment, socks for foot and dermal patches for the other parts of body. Personal air monitor equipped with a XAD-2 resin was used for the respiratory exposure assessment. During the harvest of cucumber in green house, the initial rate of potential dermal exposure (Day 1) for methidathion was 1.3 mg/hr. The major exposure parts were hand (78-83%), thigh (5-7%) and arms (6-9%) during 3 days' harvest. No exposure was detected from the respiratory monitoring. For risk assessment, the potential dermal exposure (PDE), the absorbable quantity of exposure (AQE) and the margin of safety (MOS) and margin of exposure (MOE) were calculated. In risk assessment of harvester exposure for 7 days, all MOS was > 1 and MOE was > 100 indicating that possibility of risk was little.