An analysis on determinants of farmers' willingness for resource utilization of livestock manure.

The increased manure produced in animal husbandry, especially in beef cattle farming, pose a great threat to the environment. Resource utilization of the manure is an effective way to solve the problem and is conducive to the sustainable development of animal husbandry. Based on the theory of planned behavior, this paper attempts to construct a model of farmers' willingness to utilize livestock manure from behavioral attitude, subjective norm and cognitive behavioral control, and makes an empirical test through a questionnaire on beef cattle farmers. As the findings show, farmers' behavioral attitude, subjective norm and cognitive behavioral control have a significantly positive impact on the resource utilization of the manure. Among them, behavioral attitude exerts the greatest impact, followed by cognitive behavioral control and subjective norm. Farmers surveyed share almost the same attitude towards the effects of resource utilization, who may actively or passively take into consideration the corresponding economic, social and ecological benefits. The pressure from the government plays an important role in farmers' subjective norm, while less pressure comes from village cadres and neighbors. Finally, time or labor endowment and economic strength are the core constraints on the resource utilization of livestock manure by farmers, with relatively little constraint on skill acquisition.

Health problems from pesticide exposure and personal protective measures among women cotton workers in southern Pakistan.

Women are the main cotton pickers in Pakistan even from their childhood, but due to unawareness of pesticide risks and poor knowledge of personal protection opportunities, they typically do not use personal protective measures. Albeit a major agricultural topic in Pakistan, relevant research is limited. The present study illustrates health problems from pesticide exposure during cotton harvest and the use of personal protective measures among 260 female cotton-picking workers from Shaheed Benazirabad District of Sindh Province in southern Pakistan. Skin injury, eye injury, headache, stomachache, and fever were the main health problems due to pesticide exposure according to workers' experience. Medical treatment costs of health problems were more than double (2.48 times higher) than preventive measures costs. More than half of the cotton workers surveyed did not use any protective measure during cotton picking, while 22.3% used a muffler/scarf/cloth for covering their face and 10.8% used gloves. Covering face with muffler/scarf/cloth was higher in young (P < 0.05), married (P < 0.05), and high experienced workers (P < 0.05), while no significant trends were found in the use of gloves. The use of protective measures was positively correlated with education and some experience in cotton picking. Binary logit regression showed that advanced age and high picking experience were positively associated with the use of personal protective measures, while illiteracy, traditional treatment, and medical treatment in case of illness were negatively associated with the use of personal protective measures. Findings shed new light on the topic of personal safety among women cotton pickers in Pakistan. Increasing formal education and implementing training programs for personal protective measures are important to reduce health risk and health cost by pesticides among women workers.