Chapter 04 · People & supply chainsHuman Rights & Social Sustainability
Acute pesticide poisoning
Definition
Harm to health resulting from a single or short-term exposure to a pesticide, whether through skin contact, inhalation or ingestion. Unintentional acute pesticide poisoning (UAPP) excludes deliberate self-harm; a 2026 systematic review update estimates about 402–433 million UAPP cases annually worldwide, including roughly 11,000 fatalities.
References
Updated estimate of 402–433 million UAPP cases and ~11,000 fatalities annually; ~46% of farmers affected; WHO 1990 baseline; FAO HHP phase-out recommendation.
History of estimates (WHO 1990 ~1 million; later 25 million); reasons for underreporting and wide estimate ranges.
Overview
What it means
The burden falls overwhelmingly on agricultural workers: on a global farming population of about 934 million, the 2026 estimate implies around 46% of farmers are poisoned by pesticides each year, with non-fatal cases concentrated in southern Asia, south-eastern Asia and east Africa.
Earlier benchmarks were far lower — a 1990 WHO task force estimated about one million unintentional cases and 20,000 deaths annually — and estimates vary widely with data sources and case definitions.
How it is used
The concept anchors occupational health surveillance, pesticide regulation and the policy case against highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs). The FAO Council has recommended phasing out HHPs, and poisonings are tracked through hospital registries, poison control centres and the WHO Mortality Database, though underreporting is pervasive.
Why it matters
Acute pesticide poisoning links agricultural practice directly to human rights and worker welfare, and its scale argues for safer-input policies, protective equipment and training. Measurement is contested: the widely cited 2020 estimate (385 million cases) was retracted in October 2024, and the 2026 update supersedes it — figures should always be quoted with their study and year.