Farm Workers Suffer the Most From Pesticide Exposure

Public attention on pesticides tends to be focused on consumer exposure—the levels of pesticides left on the foods we eat at the time of purchase. People oftentimes quibble about whether the levels found in store items are enough to cause health problems. But for farm workers, there is no question about the deadly effects of pesticides.

While consumers worry about the chemical residue left over from spraying, farm workers are practically marinating in it. Typically poor and undereducated and often undocumented, farm workers are an especially vulnerable population that's been all too easy for large agribusinesses to exploit.

And exploit they have; even the barest of protections afforded by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Worker Protection Standard for Agricultural Pesticides are regularly ignored. For example, in 2008, a company called Ag-Mart Produce, which sells under the trade name Santa Sweets, privately settled a lawsuit brought on by a farm worker couple whose son was born with no limbs. The workers had been regularly forced back into the fields too soon after spraying, exposing them to particularly high levels of toxins. Originally slapped with more than $300,000 in fines for regulatory violations, it now looks like Ag-Mart is off the hook. Last week, the North Carolina Pesticide Board agreed to a mere $24,000 settlement with Ag-Mart, a decision that has farm workers and their advocates outraged and ensures that current violators are unlikely to be deterred from changing their ways.

Even the scant repercussions that Ag-Mart faces are the exception. Another heartbreaking example is documented by Barry Estabrook at Politics of the Plate. Florida's Lake Apopka used to be famous for its largemouth bass, but thanks to years of pesticide use, almost nothing survives in the lake now. In 1996, the government finally bought out the farmers in the area and ceased all farming on the fields surrounding the lake. While owners got a great price for their land and equipment after ruining the area, the 2,500 workers who suffered the most from the pollution were offered nothing and left jobless. Today, they have a long list of health problems definitively linked to the chemicals sprayed in the area years ago, including "arthritis, throat problems, diabetes, persistent coughing, and recurring rashes, miscarriages, birth defects, and childhood developmental difficulties." Yet no one has done anything to help them.

The EPA recently discovered that the pesticide endosulfan is much more dangerous than previously believed, and it will soon be banned. Unfortunately, it's just one example of the hundreds of dangerous chemicals that agricultural field workers are regularly exposed to. California seems poised to approve the highly carcinogenic chemical methyl iodide for use on 90 percent of the country's strawberry crop, which will surely result in skyrocketing cancer rates and early deaths for farm workers. Another class of chemicals called organophosphates are little-regulated and super dangerous. Yet, according to the Pesticide Action Network, they are the most widely used class of insecticides in America. Several studies have found significant amounts of these pesticides not just in farm workers' bodies, but in their cars, homes, and on their children's hands and toys. One type of organophosphate, chlorpyrifos, has been banned from residential use due to the danger it poses. Why don't farm workers, their children, and those that live near agricultural fields deserve the same protection?

The obvious response to this abuse is to buy organic. But be careful: Santa Sweets, according to its Web site, is also one of the largest growers of organic tomatoes in the U.S. This scenario underscores why it is so important to know your farmer if you don't want to support growers who just want your sustainable food dollar, but don't actually care about ethical practices.

You can also sign PAN's petition to the EPA to ban the use of chlorpyrifos and phase out the use of organophosphate pesticides. Folks also have til June 29th to sign Change.org's petition to keep methyl iodide out of California's fields. We've scored one victory with endosulfan; with hard work we can surely rake in some more.

Photo credit: JoePhoto via Flickr