During the implementation of treatments that aim at protecting fields, sprayers prove to be a necessary tool for farmers. Nevertheless, due to their initial design and the ways they are used, these tools also turn out to ...
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During the implementation of treatments that aim at protecting fields, sprayers prove to be a necessary tool for farmers. Nevertheless, due to their initial design and the ways they are used, these tools also turn out to be one of the determinants of pesticide exposure situations encountered by farmers. In order to better understand these situations, this thesis aims at identifying and understanding a specific chain of determinants based on analysis conducted at different levels: the treatment activities, the activities of sprayer design, the regulation that applies to this design and the activities of regulation development. The ergonomic analysis of treatment activities highlights the fact that farmers encounter many issues during the use of their equipment, which leads, in most cases, to situations of pesticide exposure. To deal with those issues, farmers end up elaborating strategies that can lead them, for instance, to keep designing their equipment through its use. However, these forms of appropriation can result in situations of pesticide exposure, due to an arbitration between different criteria (production, protection). To that extent, the design of sprayers turns out to determining in the emergence of these situations. The analysis of the design activities reveals that the design process depends on many factors (costs, timing, quality, innovation). The compromises made between these different factors prevent from taking into account farmers’ real activity and the associated risks of contamination that eventually lead to the issues mentioned above. Also, the design activities are determined, at least partially, by regulation requirements that designers must take into account. The research work shows that designers have issues identifying and applying these requirements due to their diversity and their content. Although regulation requirements could serve as a resource to include health and safety matters in the design, the analysis of their content reveals important deficiencies. These deficiencies mainly revolve around the taking into account of farmers’ real work and associated contamination risks. If the legal and technical rules determine, at least partially, the design activities, then they de facto determine situations of pesticide exposure during the use of sprayers. The analysis of the activities of rules development shows that the economic criterion holds a predominant position, sometimes at the expense of other criteria such as health and safety. During this transdisciplinary research work involving ergonomics and law, the articulation between microscopic (treatment activities) and macroscopic (design and regulation) analysis turned out to be relevant to provide more information on the situations of pesticide exposure during the use of sprayers. The results of this thesis highlight the significance of considering changes at different levels. Considering the design and the regulation as transformation levers leads to a reflection upon the conditions to bring together so that different professional worlds, whether they are closely concerned by these issues or not, could collaborate and aim at a better prevention of pesticide exposure situations during the use of sprayers.
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