Abstract

The study investigated the perceived health status and safety practices of the agro-input dealers in Oyo State, Nigeria. Using a simple random sampling technique, 144 respondents were sampled from the list of Oyo State Agro-input Dealers Association (OYSAIDA) across the four Agricultural Zones of the State. Structured questionnaire was used for data collection, while descriptive and chi-square statistics were used to summarise the data. Result shows that majority (98.6%) indicated awareness of the use of hand gloves, 93.0% for rubber boots and 97.9% for overall jacket. In the same vein, about 96.1% were aware of the need to wear protective dress/overall when measuring chemicals while 96% were aware that liquid containers should not be opened with the mouth. Majority (64.3%) of respondents recorded a low level of practice of safety measures while only 35.7% of respondents recorded a high level of practice of safety measures. Also, majority (53.8%) of the respondents indicated good health status, while 46.2% revealed poor health status. A significant relationship was found between 2 the level of use of safety practices and the perceived health status of agro input dealers (=4.700, p<0.05). The study concluded that despite the high level of awareness of safety gears and safety practices involved in the handling and storage of agro-chemicals among the respondents, level of use of safety practices by respondents was very low and consequently, a poor health status of a considerable proportion of the agro-input dealers in the State. It is recommended that awareness messages that will ensure adherence to the required safety practices should be advocated. This will reduce the health hazards associated with handling and long term-term effect with the usage of agro-chemicals.

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