Fumigation with phosphine gas is a critical tool to assure protection of agricultural food commodities from waste and spoilage. It is also an intrinsically dangerous process: phosphine is deadly, flammable and corrosive.
Failure to properly conduct fumigation poses serious risks to fumigators, warehouse workers and nearby residents. It also creates a high risk that fumigation will be ineffective, posing both an immediate problem for the program and contributing to the significant and growing problem of phosphine resistance.
Resistance increases commodity spoilage and costs. And, by requiring longer exposure times and higher concentrations of gas, it increases health and safety risks. In the worst case, resistance could lead to the loss of phosphine fumigation as an effective tool.
