Regulating by stealth: reducing the OSH impact of pesticides

Exposure to pesticides poses a serious, albeit largely incalculable, threat to the health of agricultural workers worldwide. Incremental reforms to the regulatory status quo at national level may somewhat mitigate the problem. However, this paper argues that greater opportunities for improving agricultural occupational safety and health and pesticide safety lie outside the boundaries of the traditional regulatory system, through harnessing the potential of new agricultural and pest control technology, the market forces driving global food production, and powerful forces within civil society capable of changing community attitudes to risk and safety. These instruments will be most successful when they form part of an integrated strategy underpinned by regulation and state intervention. Notwithstanding the retreat of the regulatory state, governments have a pivotal role in harnessing and shaping these forces to improve agricultural occupational safety and health in what might be termed ‘regulating by stealth’.