Evidence on Human Exposure to Pesticides and the Occurrence of Health Hazards in the Brazilian Population: A Systematic Review

Brazil is among the biggest pesticide consumers in the world, with its population severely exposed to tons of such substances, both because of environmental contamination and occupational use. The health consequences of pesticide exposure are well-documented, but still sparse regarding Brazilian population. This study systematically reviewed the Brazilian studies published that address the relationship between exposure to pesticides and health problems in the Brazilian population. Also, information about pesticide use in Brazil is provided. The included studies showed that exposure to pesticides has a relevant impact on the health of the Brazilian population, regardless of age and gender, and on workers in rural areas or not. Most poisoning events seem to result from the continuous use of pesticides, whether occupationally or environmentally, characterizing a public health problem. The major consequences reported in literature were damage to the central nervous system, cancer, deleterious effects on rural workers' health, intoxications, malformations, and endocrine changes. These findings point out the need to understand the impact of chronic exposure to pesticides on severely exposed people and highlight the importance of creating public policies to protect them and avoid disease occurrence.

Mistica: A Marxist Praxis

The Mística is the symbolic or dramatic social movement of Marxism initiated by Brazilian Landless Rural Workers. It is the popular movement practiced by the Communist parties and socialist organizations of the world. It was developed from Latin American liberation doctrine and interpreted as love for a cause, solidarity experienced in collectivity, symbolic presentation of the socialist movement, and belief in radical change. It is one type of philosophical movement which has a demonstrative attachment, praxis of pedagogy, behavioral collectivity, and cultural movement to change the social world guided by the theory of Karl Marx. It has political roots against the homogenization of culture, imperialism, and capitalist domination of the world. It uses art, music, drama, activity, symbol, media, and other modern tools which help the people for emancipation. This article will demonstrate some of the major aspects of mistica based upon the field observation of Brazil and Nepal.

Payment system of agricultural workers of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 1965 – 1985

The article considers the organization of the system of remuneration of agricultural workers in Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the mid-1960s and mid-1980s. The main role in the income of the Soviet people was played by wages. It was the main lever of material incentives for the population to work. Its changes directly affected the well-being of the region's residents, as wages were the main source of livelihood for the Donbass population. The main component of the salary was the tariff rate. The authorities systematically reviewed the system of rates and salaries, believing that this would help achieve the main goal to ensure the optimal share of the tariff part in wages. The search for the most rational ways to create an effective system of material remuneration of workers in the 1960-80s continued quite actively. In general, wages in the country were regulated mainly by the state, market mechanisms were not involved in this process. Much attention is paid to the legislative justification of the formation and changes in the system of remuneration of their labor. In particular, the relevant resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR, decisions of the Plenums of the Central Committee, local authorities, etc. are traced. On the basis of the above documents, the level of salaries of agricultural workers, the procedure for calculating various types of surcharges and bonuses, their differences in the years and main positions under study are analyzed. For almost the entire period under study, there has been a relentless search for optimization of wages in rural areas, but this search has had almost no effect on a significant improvement in the living standards of peasants. Different forms of wage distribution are also considered, salaries of management and agricultural specialists are analyzed and compared. The aspect of the existence of homesteads as a means of additional income is studied. The author gives a generalized description of the changes in the system of remuneration of rural workers during 1965 1985, following it from archival materials. The main attention is paid to the shortcomings in the system of wages in agriculture, reveals the unfair distribution of monetary expenditures on the wage fund.

LONELINESS AND DESPAIR OF A PERSON IN VASYL STEFANYK’S NOVELS

Vasyl Stafanyk entered into Ukrainian literature XIX – XX century as a master of the short story, where he emotionally passionately violates the existential problems of an individual person, lost in a world indifferent to him, of which he is forced to make certain decisions and take responsibility for his choices. The artist’s special attention is drawn to the loneliness of man, which often causes him despair and confusion. In particular, this is reflected in Stefanyk’s short stories on the lives of rural workers. The writer knew well the Ukrainian village, the problems of the peasants. There was already a gradual departure of the rural community from the collective responsibility for the fate of each of its members, which deepened the alienation, created a sense of abandonment, in his time. For example, the village and the community are calmly watching the decline of Anton’s farm – the hero of Stefanyk’s short story «Blue Book». In this short story, the cry of the soul of a once wealthy owner, who was unlucky, who in despair drinks the whole farm. In his drunken bravado there is sadness, rage and hopelessness, deep despair – Anton feels that everyone is indifferent to his grief, there is no compassion in his home community. Such loneliness, alienation and despair of man, indifference of others permeate the pages and short stories «Paliy». Its protagonist, old Fedor, worked all his life for the rich Andriy Kurochka, lost his strength and health on his farm, and is now forced to beg from strangers. The thought of this hurts Fedor’s aching soul, he goes mad with loneliness, deeply offends his human indifference. In despair, deeply offended, lonely in his grief, Fedor sets fire to the hen’s barn, taking revenge on him for his mutilated life. The lyrical hero of V. Stefanyk’s short story «My Word» chooses a different way of reacting to unfavorable life circumstances from the previous character. It is the confession of a lonely, abandoned man in a world indifferent to the fate of everyone. Detached from his native land, the hero of the novel doesn’t find peace and joy in the new world. His longing comrades, who agreed with this new world, don’t understand him. So, abandoned by them, he builds himself a world of his own imagination, in which he is comfortable and where he truly lives, hoping to find happiness. Accordingly, the author of the short story convinces that everyone is lonely and doomed to fight for their happiness, and therefore responsible for their choices. Very often Vasyl Stefanyk addresses the topic of lonely old age, when adult children become busy with their worries and do not need their parents, as, for example, in the short story «Angel», where old Tymchykha, feeling unnecessary for children, prepares for death as a salvation from loneliness. The writer raises a similar theme of loneliness of old parents with living children in such short stories as, in particular, «Sama samisinka», which depicts a gruesome picture of the death of a helpless mother left to fend for her children who went to work. The other side of lonely old age depicts the image of old Maxim, who can’t forget his dead sons. A lone widower who sent two sons to fight for Ukraine, he complains about his fate, rages in the field at work, shouts at the horses. At the same time, in despair, Maxim doesn’t accept any sympathy from neighbors, proudly carries his loneliness and despair, lamenting the whole world. He is disgusted by everything around him, he lives only by memories of the past, when his sons and wife were alive, when life was raging in his house. Thus, as we can see, many of Vasyl Stefanyk’s short stories are imbued with existential problems of man concerning the negative nature of human existence. Among them the loneliness and despair of the person in difficult life situations are especially penetratingly considered by the writer.

FORMATION OF THE NEW HERO IMAGE IN RUSSIAN ART OF THE 1920’S AND 1930’S

The art of the Soviet era attracts more and more attention of researchers and the public year by year. The exhibitions held over the past decades in Russia and abroad, the published monographs dedicated to works of art of the era and particular artists, the international creative contacts in cultural field — all of that has introduced previously unknown works into art history studies, which has allowed to re-evaluate the objectives and tasks of the art of the period and the development of the artistic process in general. That is why it is of great interest to study the ways the plastic arts formed and developed in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The 1917 revolution in its foundations had not just a change in social and political reality, but also a change in the very essence of man. The new era demanded a new hero, shaped his appearance in its works. The soviet man, thought of as a new man, became a fundamentally new object of art. If the 1920’s became the time of the search in proletarian art and the flourishing of avant-gardism, then in the 1930’s the objective of art in building the lifeworld of a new man began to be understood much narrower and stricter, and this Man who perceives art began to be described as a “normal” (that is, average, “ordinary”) consumer of cultural tradition. The “New Man” in the plastic arts of the 1920’s and 1930’s was formed as the new hero of society; avant-garde artists sought his originality in the images of generalized and abstract aviators, peasants, women; artists of socialist realism began to form the images of “typical” heroes of the time (military men, athletes, rural workers, scientists) as new “Renaissance people”, equally ready for work and defense. At the same time, two main tendencies, two directions that correspond to the two tasks of socialist realism, clearly lie in the image of the “new” Soviet man: the depiction of reality (that is, the new Soviet man that really exists) and the depiction of the ideal (that is, the ideal man).

Perlambatan migrasi sirkuler: Penilaian terhadap perubahan pola migrasi sirkuler di pedesaan Jawa Barat

Circular migration has become a well-established institution for rural dwellers in Java. For farmers or unskilled rural workers, informal sectors, construction, or small trade in urban areas provide an adequate working opportunity and, at the same time, a relatively higher wage compared to the agricultural sector. It is frequently argued that migration could reduce poverty in rural areas. Although many harsh critics had been addressed to such arguments, there was relatively little attention given to the dynamics of circular migration itself, as most studies tend to argue that these activities are a constant phenomenon. Based on a comparative survey conducted in Tegal Nduwur Village in 2010 and 2020, this study finds that the rate of circular migration among farmers has significantly decreased. Better market opportunities and deindustrialisation, combined with a shifting development paradigm toward decentralisation since 1999, have gradually improved the village’s infrastructure. Under such conditions, the agroecosystem has been transformed from a slow to a fast one. The fast agroecosystem has yielded a more promising outcome for farmers’ household economy and absorbed many labor forces, i.e., people who previously migrated to various cities. This condition has decelerated the circular migration flows.

Mentality and Stereotypes of Social Behavior in Everyday Life of 1950—1980s (Documentary Evidence of Evolution)

On the basis of archival sources brought into scientific circulation for the first time, extracted from the fund of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History, the issue of public perception of the social and material conditions of life in the 1950—1980s is highlighted in the article. The problem of establishing new social archetypes, the formation of which becomes possible in the context of the approval of the newly acquired value foundations of economic behavior, the acceptability of informal economic practices, as well as activities aimed at strengthening material wealth is raised. The circumstances of the metamorphosis in the ideological attitudes and stereotypes of thinking of representatives of the party nomenklatura, production managers, top managers, workers and rural workers are commented on. Attention is paid to the issue of traditions of communality, collectivism, Soviet labor ideology. The author describes the reaction of the authorities to changes in the world order, which are expressed in the transformation of ideological constructs and paternalistic mentality-forming constants of the consciousness of the Russian people. The author comes to the conclusion that during the 1950—1980s, changes in everyday social ideas and traditions, mentality, thinking testified to the growing social division, which ultimately became the basis of the crisis of the 1990s.

Ghettos, Work and Health Immigration Policies and New Coronavirus in the Gioia Tauro Plain

In Italy, the new Coronavirus pandemic has dramatically highlighted the contradictions evident in the relations between the agri-food sector and the political-economic treatment of a work force whose productive contribution is nowadays perceived as highly necessary. In a short time, in fact, slowdowns encountered by the agricultural sector during pandemic endangered the subsistence’s conditions of thousands of rural workers. In this contribution, I’ll try to examine, in the background of the current medical emergency, the relation between reception policies, differential inclusion of migrant work force in the labour market and the production of urban and political marginality in Southern Italy, more specifically in the Gioia Tauro Plain.

A Pragmatic Study for Enhancing Agricultural Efficiency through Labor Freedom

The study aims to explore labor freedom in the agricultural sector for enhancing the efficiency of farming through policy change towards assigning property rights, rental contracts, and better wage-employment options to rural workers. Labor freedom emphasizes land reform and development policy for improving the economic status and capabilities of rural workers. The paper assessed the labor freedom index, weighted through agricultural property rights, labor wage contracts, and rural development policy. Data envelopment analysis is used to assess farm-level efficiency under the framework of Tobit regression for different size-based farm categories. Farm-level information was collected through a primary survey of 336 rural households of an advanced agricultural state in India. The study found a positive association between farm size and intensity of labor freedom, although the extent of freedom differs among farms. Size-specific variation was also observed for allocative efficiency such that marginal and medium-sized farms are more efficient than smaller ones. Tobit regression indicated labor freedom to be positively and significantly related to the efficiency of marginal, small and overall farms with enhancing efficiency of 25, 17 and nearly 20%, respectively; however, estimates of labor freedom insignificantly increased the efficiency of mediums farms, by 4.8%. This result suggests that labor freedom positive and significantly affects the efficiency of farms in general, and marginal and small farms in particular. Of course, the elasticity estimate of enhancing efficiency through labor freedom for medium farmers is found at a lower level.