In a study of pesticide use on farms in Oman, over 200 respondents were surveyed from amongst owners of and
workers on farms that belonged to a Farmers' Association and those that did not belong to the
questionnaire was used to gauge attitudes to pesticide use whilst inventories of active ingredients were taken
for all farms. The age profiles of the respondents were broadly similar, as was the distribution of nationalities
amongst the workers. Workers and owners of farms were better educated than respondents from nonmember
farms. A majority of non farm workers reported that they always used pesticides, fewer member
farm workers and non-FA farm owners reported this behaviour with owners showing the lowest proportion
of respondents who always used pesticides. Responses amongst farm owners to questions about frequency of
pesticide use suggested that this was unaffected by age or education status, but for farm workers younger or
less well educated respondents were more likely to respond by indicating that pesticides were always used.
When asked to rate pesticides on a scale of 1 (bad) to 10 (good), high responses were most frequent amongst
non farm workers followed by member farm workers and non farm owners. On average farm
owners had the lowest average response, and responses by all groupswere unaffected by age or education status.
Prohibited pesticide use was higher on non farms (4.9% of all pesticides) than on farms (1.3%). Pesticide
products observed on member farms generally contained newer classes of active ingredients and were
most frequently from major manufacturing companies in Europe, North America and Japan. Older, off-patent
active ingredient-containing products were frequently observed on non farms, often from so-called ‘metoo’
producing companies in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.