**Author details**

*Sustainability Concept in Developing Countries*

results that lead to better results.

**7. Conclusions**

monitoring in workers.

herbicides.

countries.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflicts of interest**

(PRODEP)," authorization number 511-6/18-8537.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Some strategies to convince the farmers are to promote crop rotations and field demonstrations, among others, but the most important is to change the farmer mentality which could be achieved by encouraging financial support that could bring about short-term changes [61]; however, attitudinal changes are long-term

chronic exposure of people who work and live in rural areas.

As was mentioned in Section 3, the global food demand promotes that farmers cannot leave aside the use of herbicides [24]. Consequently, the natural recovery of the soil is not carried out, causing an accumulation of herbicides. This phenomenon is the main factor associated with the development of diseases produced by the

The literature analysis indicates that the health problems of agricultural workers are directly related to environmental pollution due to the unsustainable use of

Health problems due to the exposure of agricultural workers to herbicides are a major concern, mainly in developing countries. This concern is due to the fact that the use of herbicides in these regions is indiscriminate and the workers have no prior training for their use, so there are no personal protective equipment regulations, and in developing countries there are few or no regulations to address accumulated concentrations in the environment, and there are no regulated bio-

In rural areas mainly from developing countries, where there are no exists specific standards for their regulations, there is disturbing environmental contamination by herbicides; in these places are reported numerous diseases related to herbicide exposure, which leads to demand in public health services and hence decrease in the workforce, the worker's quality of life, and the growth of the

country. That is why herbicide distribution companies should commit to indicate to the users/workers the correct management of the herbicides, including application

This research showed that exposure to herbicides by agricultural workers and the environmental contamination with these chemicals are problems that can be solved by enforcing establish regulations in rural zones principally from developing

This study was supported by "Programa para el Desarrollo Profesional Docente

quantities, as well as, the rigorous use of personal protective equipment.

**60**

Ana Paola Balderrama-Carmona1 \*, Norma Patricia Silva-Beltrán<sup>2</sup> , Luis Alberto Zamora Alvarez1 , Norma Patricia Adan Bante1 and Edgar Felipe Moran Palacio1

1 Department of Chemical Biological and Agricultural, Universidad de Sonora, Navojoa, Sonora, Mexico

2 Department of Health Sciences, Universidad de Sonora, Cd. Obregon, Sonora, Mexico

\*Address all correspondence to: paola.balderrama@unison.mx

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
