**1. Introduction**

In recent years, matters concerning the safer and more sustainable use of chemical products in agriculture have risen in importance worldwide [1,2]. In the European Union this goal is represented by the implementation of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) policy [3], which relies on a series of legislative interventions starting from the issue of Directive 2009/128/EC, establishing a framework for community action to achieve the sustainable use of pesticides [4]. This directive, together with the related acts affecting, among others, the safety requirements of the machinery for pesticide application [5], the placing of plant protection products on the market [6], the classification, labelling, and packaging of substances and mixtures [7], and the requirements for the registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of chemicals [8–10], have had a large impact on farmers and companies operating in the agricultural sector.

These new and stricter obligations concern the whole cycle of pesticide use, starting from their purchase up to the disposal of packaging and residues. As requested by Directive 2009/128/EC, the mandatory requirements that should be satisfied for the proper use of pesticides are defined by Member States through their National Action Plans (NAPs) [11]. From the farmers' perspective, this new approach towards a low pesticide-input in agriculture affects several aspects, ranging from the change of agronomic practices to the compliance with more rigorous specifications for both machinery maintenance as well as occupational health and safety (OHS) measures [12–14].

Besides the unquestionable benefits for the environment, human health, and social costs that can be achieved pursuing the targets proposed by this new legislative framework, the difficulties for farmers in complying with it are also remarkable [15,16].

The goal of the present study was to investigate the latter aspect, focusing on the assessment of the occupational risks related to the use of pesticides. Numerous studies addressing risk assessment from the epidemiological point of view can be found in the literature [17–21]. On the other hand, only few studies have dealt with the practical needs of the companies, in particular agricultural enterprises, of implementing risk assessment and management to guarantee the safe use of pesticides [8,22]. In particular, one of the major problems at the practical level, especially for small companies, is represented by the provision of a document where, as per Article 9 of Directive 89/391/EEC, "an assessment of the risks to safety and health at work, including those facing groups of workers exposed to particular risks" is reported. Hence, companies have to implement and document a risk assessment procedure that includes, among other aspects, the best practices, information, and training issues coming from the application of Directive 2009/128/EC, and information provided by the safety data sheet as defined by Regulation (EC) no. 1907/2006 in conjunction with Regulation (EC) no. 1272/2008. Contrary to pesticide exposure, in other types of exposure to particular occupational risks, such as vibrations, noise, or ultraviolet (UV) radiation, it is possible to provide a preliminary evaluation of the exposures and risks. Specifically, when dealing with vibrating tools and machines the exposure levels can be properly defined thanks to the availability of databases recognized from scientific bodies/authorities [23,24]. Based on this, a preliminary risk assessment can be performed considering the dose and the duration of exposure in a hands-on manner [25].

In the case of pesticides, the exposure depends on many factors and workers doing apparently the same job might be exposed to different levels of an active substance. There is a lack of clear evidence on how the dose levels or the repeated exposure might influence workers' health [18,26–28]. Moreover, the products put on the market are in continuous evolution [29], and, although some pesticide databases exist [30], their recognition by the OHS authorities is difficult. As a consequence, even a preliminary risk assessment, providing information on the relationships between the pesticides' use and the consequent exposure risks for the workers, is certainly a complex task [31], requiring additional efforts and resources particularly in the case of small-sized companies [32,33]. In such a context, in fact, safety knowledge, attitudes, and practices are still inadequate [34–36], even when dealing with a proper understanding of safety pictograms [37–40].

In order to reduce the above-mentioned gap, the present study is focused on the development of an easy-to-use tool for carrying out occupational risk assessment of agricultural activities related to the use of pesticides. Such a tool is aimed at supporting companies in verifying the compliance with mandatory requirements and providing OHS management indications to achieve and maintain safe working conditions when using pesticides.

In the next section, an analysis of the legislative framework that the risk assessment activities have to comply with is provided. Then, in Section 3 a background analysis on the scientific issues related to the solution of such a problem is reported. Section 4 presents the research approach/methodology, illustrating the proposed risk assessment procedure, while in Section 5 its practical application in a case study is reported. Section 6 discusses the achieved results and conclusive remarks are presented in Section 7.
