The majority of farmers in both regions reported that they knew
some kinds of pesticides had already been banned, such as DDT,
hexachlorocyclohexanes, parathion, demeton, and thimet, which are
all highly toxic and persistent pollutants. A lower proportion paid no
attention to such bans, but the proportion was nearly 3-fold higher in
S1 than in S2 (p b 0.05). A large proportion in S1 (N90%) did not know
why these pesticides had been banned, compared to only 1.1% of the
farmers in S2. The farmers in S2 believed that commercial unavailability
(92.3%), the high toxicity of the pesticide (68.1%), and national control
were the critical reasons for the bans, but few of the farmers
interviewed in S1 knew of these reasons (p b 0.01).