ILO supports agricultural occupational health training in Chongqing Pengshui

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Pengshui, Chongqing (ILO News) - With the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO), an agricultural occupational health training workshop was held from 25 to 27 November in Pengshui Miao and Tujia Autonomous County, Chongqing. The training was hosted by Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) and organized by the Pengshui County Health Commission. Over 50 grassroots representatives from township governments, the county CDC, township health centres, village clinics and agricultural enterprises participated in the three-day training of trainers (TOT). The initiative aims to strengthen local occupational health service capacity, improve the health of agricultural workers, promote decent work and contribute to rural revitalization.

Pengshui, a minority autonomous county that has successfully eradicated poverty and is actively advancing rural revitalization, has made remarkable progress in infrastructure and industrial development in recent years. In 2024, the United Nations and Chinese partners launched a joint initiative in Pengshui to mobilize UN system resources and expertise to support the county's vision for comprehensive rural revitalization. As part of this initiative, ILO previously partnered with the local Human Resources and Social Security Bureau to deliver "Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB)" training, fostering entrepreneurship and quality employment to support the development of the local economy and labour market. This new training further focuses on agricultural workers' occupational health, leveraging PUMC's technical expertise to enhance grassroots capacity and promote decent work for building community-friendly and prosperous rural communities.

Agriculture is among the three sectors with the highest occupational safety and health risks globally. Around 892 million people work in agriculture worldwide, and the fatality rate is three times higher than the average for other sectors. One in three fatal occupational accidents occurs among agricultural workers. Many agricultural workers are in informal or seasonal employment, lacking training, protective equipment and access to health services. Climate change adds new challenges such as heat stress and occupational disease risks, disproportionately affecting smallholders, older workers and women. Improving occupational safety and health in agriculture is essential not only for workers' well-being but also for food security, productivity and sustainable development.

In his opening remarks delivered online, Chang-Hee Lee, Director of the ILO Country Office for China and Mongolia, stressed, "China's national strategies such as 'Rural Revitalization', 'Healthy China' and 'Common Prosperity' set higher requirements for occupational health. Rapid urbanization has led to a significant outflow of rural labour, leaving women and older people as the backbone of the rural workforce.

To retain rural labour, it is important to improve job quality and protect agricultural workers' health. Given that many rural workers lack knowledge and resources on occupational safety and health, providing practical, easy-to-understand and locally relevant education is crucial.

Liu Fei, Deputy Director and Secretary-General of the Rural Revitalization Committee of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, expressed strong expectations for improving grassroots management and agricultural workers' occupational safety capacity. She encouraged participants to apply what they learned in their work, becoming not only beneficiaries of health protection but also "seeds" that spread health knowledge.

Ma Shiping, Deputy County Head of Pengshui, emphasized that the outcomes of this training will help Pengshui explore feasible approaches to agricultural occupational health protection, develop replicable and scalable models, and extend these experiences to the Wuling Mountain region, injecting strong "health momentum" into rural revitalization.

The training builds on ILO-supported pilot work in Dafang County, Guizhou, where PUMC implemented rural occupational health interventions using ILO-developed low-cost, practical tools to help enterprises and workers identify health risks in workplaces and living environments and develop effective solutions. Following the capacity-building programme in Dafang, PUMC's School of Population Medicine and Public Health established a teaching and research base at Fengshan Township Health Centre in Dafang, supported 125 local health professionals through blended family medicine training, and helped pilot enterprises implement targeted occupational health improvements, significantly raising workers' awareness of agricultural health and nutrition.

The Pengshui training addressed three major grassroots challenges: limited awareness and capacity among agricultural workers, insufficient capacity of local service institutions, and lack of low-cost intervention tools for dispersed labour forces. The training was delivered by Professor Zhang Min and her team from PUMC, with technical support from Professor Jorma Rantanen, Honorary Director of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and University of Helsinki. Using ILO's "Checkpoints for Improving Work Conditions in Agriculture" as the main reference, the course adopted participatory, action-oriented and group work methods combined with on-site teaching. Topics included national policy interpretation, international progress, ergonomic risk prevention, safe handling of chemicals, nutrition and health, and biological risk prevention. The team also conducted baseline surveys on farmers in pilot townships and workers in pilot enterprises and proposed tailored intervention measures.

The project focuses on agricultural workers' occupational health and safety through small-scale, practical interventions in two townships and four agricultural enterprises. The goal is to develop replicable and scalable grassroots pathways for improving occupational health, ultimately providing evidence to inform national policy for the agricultural sector. The World Health Organization and the PUMC Education Foundation also contributed to this initiative.