[Allergies in agriculture]

Thanks to enormous progress in industrial medicine, life expectancy of workers in dust-polluted (dust-burdened) jobs has massively improved; however, farmers, gained too little interest of industrial medicine so far and thus show one of the highest mortality rates from pulmonary diseases. Today the farmer's exposure to dust and respective allergens is often extremely high; however, the composition of the inhaled dust varies extremely, depending on the type of work. Particularly organic dusts are inhaled that are known as common and frequent allergy inducers in the normal population. In spite of the increased exposure to the common airborne allergens, children of farmers rarely develop allergies, obviously due to an increased tolerance to common allergens. The high mortality rate from pulmonary diseases, including asthma, in farmers seems therefore less a question of profession-specific allergens than of decompensated adaptation phenomena. Thus an optimized dust prevention seems important. Dermatologic diseases: Farmers are exposed to many irritative and potentially sensitizing contact allergens including those from natural sources (plants) and diverse fungicides, pesticides as well as chemicals used in mechanical professions. The risk of phototoxic and photoallergic reactions is increased by profession-related exposure to sun. This also concerns related reactions to medical drugs. The best preventive measure for contact sensitization is an optimized skin protection, particularly of the hands.