Introduction: Tanjung Karang is a paddy growing town in Selangor, Malaysia. The paddy farmers in Tanjung Karang were using pesticides to control pests from invading the crops during agricultural activities with limited knowledge of its deleterious effects on their health. Objective: This study aims to (i) determine the respiratory health symptoms of paddy farmers due to occupational exposure of commonly used pesticides through inhalation and (ii) assess correlations between climatological conditions and the concentrations of pesticides in personal air samples among paddy farmers in Tanjung Karang, Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out to assess the occupational exposures to pesticides among 83 paddy farmers in Kampung Sawah Sempadan. The data were collected with face-to-face interviews with the farmers based on a set of questionnaire. Results: The self-reported respiratory health symptoms of paddy farmers were as follows: breathing difficulty (16.9%), chest pain (15.7%), cough (41.0%), phlegm (39.8%), and wheezing (18.1%). Simple logistic regressions analysis indicated that exposure to azoxystrobin, buprofezin, chlorantraniliprole, fipronil, isoprothiolane, pretilachlor, propiconazole, tricyclazole and trifloxystrobin were contributing factors that affect self-reported respiratory health symptoms in this study. Spearman’s correlation coefficient test stated that the concentrations of chlorantraniliprole, fipronil and pymetrozine were affected by wind speed and temperature. Conclusion: The information obtained in this study is useful to understand the exposure of pesticides among paddy farmers and useful for risk management in the agricultural community.

Introduction: Pesticides may influence the physicochemical properties of soil and the water quality parameters, which is vital in maintaining soil fertility and producing high quality crops. Objective: This study aims to determine the relationship between the concentration of pesticides, the physicochemical properties of the paddy soil samples and the water quality parameters of paddy water samples. Methods: A total of 72 soil and 72 water samples were collected in Tanjung Karang, Malaysia. The paddy soil and water were extracted using Quick, Easy, Cheap, Efficient, Rugged and Safe (QuEChERS) and solid phase extraction (SPE) techniques respectively. The concentrations of pesticides were analysed in ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). The relationship of the concentration of target pesticides and the paddy soil and water physicochemical properties were studied using Spearman correlation. Results: In paddy soil, the concentration of propiconazole shows moderate positive correlation with manganese (Mn) (r = 0.587) (p≤ 0.01). Meanwhile buprofezin-total organic carbon (TOC) (r = -0.55) (p≤ 0.01), imidacloprid-cation exchange capacity (CEC) (r = -0.519) (p≤ 0.01), pymetrozine-sodium (Na) (r = -0.588) (p≤ 0.01), and trifloxystrobin-calcium (Ca) (r = 0.566) (p≤ 0.01) showed moderate negative correlation. Whereas in water, trifloxystrobin showed significant positive correlation with turbidity (r = 0.718) (p≤ 0.01) and tebuconazole showed negative correlation to dissolved oxygen (DO) (r = 0.634) (p≤ 0.01). Conclusion: The presence of pesticides in paddy field may influence the soil and water quality, thus regular monitoring of pesticides usage and nutrient management in soil is deemed important.