Assessment of the impact of pesticide use in urban and periurban agriculture in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

Pesticides are used in agriculture for the control of pests and weedy species. Unfortunately, these chemicals are a potential risk for environment contamination and human toxicity. Market gardening soils are vulnerable to human activities because of the pesticide use. The objective of this work was to make a rapid and adequate diagnosis of the conditions of pesticide use by market gardeners. Thus, a view to assess the real impact of their use on the risk of soil pollution has been established. For this purpose, interviews and questionnaires were submitted to 243 market gardeners in Port-Bouët, Songon and Bingerville. 100% of farmers use chemical pesticides on their farms. The most pesticides used are insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. 92% of farmers have a low education level and only 4.33% of them have received a good agricultural practices training. Unsafe practices such as fraudulent use of unregistered pesticides, non-compliance with recommended rates of pesticide, the use of cotton pesticides and persistent molecules have been observed. These practices increase the risk inherent of environment pollution and vegetables.

Keywords: Market gardening, pesticide, environment.