This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 15, May 22-28, 2005
U.S. Farm Workers and
Environmental Injustice
Farm work is consistently
ranked among the top three most hazardous occupations in the United States and
farm workers suffer the highest rate of chemical-related occupational illness of
all job categories in the country.
By Arturo P. Garcia LOS ANGELES, California -
The Los Angeles Times reported Feb. 1, 2003 on a new report from the Center of
Disease Control that all Americans are contaminated with industrial poisons and
that children are bearing the brunt of these toxic exposures. The same report also
mentioned that Mexican Americans are carrying three times more DDT residue than
non-Latino whites or blacks, the study found. The higher the exposure may
reflect use of pesticide in Mexico or it maybe farm workers in the United States
mostly Mexican Americans are being exposed to decades-old DDT that remains in
the soil. DDT is believed to cause cancer. In 1998, the National
Agricultural Workers Survey estimated that a majority of the 600,000 California
farm workers and their families have no insurance of any kind- either individual
or employer-provided. (Rosenburg et al) Some uninsured farm workers seek
treatment at federally-funded migrant health clinics, but far too many simply go
without treatment. Recent immigrants, now ineligible for Medicaid as a result of
recent “welfare reform” are now even less likely to seek medical treatment for
work related injuries. The sad fact stands out-
that many pesticide poisoning are not reported. Farm work is consistently
ranked among the top three most hazardous occupations in the U.S. and farm
workers suffer the highest rate of chemical-related occupational illness of all
job categories in the country (Bureau of Labor Standards, 1987). Yet other
hazardous industries have received much attention from the OSHA. OSHA standards,
regulation and enforcement have brought about significant increases in injuries
in manufacturing and construction. For example, the Mine Safety Act has reduced
the injury rates in mines by 5 percent since 1973. By contrast agricultural
injury and illness rates remain among the highest in the nation, ranging from
9.4 percent to more than 12 percent between 1990 and 1996 (AFL-CIO 1999, Bureau
of Labor Statistics, 1995, Runyan, 1993). Direct comparison between
federal government’s response to mining versus agricultural health problems
reveals particularly stark inequalities. Agriculture and mining are the two most
hazardous industries in the country. Yet on per worker basis, the federal budget
for occupational safety in 1985 was estimated to be $ 434 per worker for all
industries, $181 per mine worker and only $0.30 cents per agricultural worker. (Schenker,
1991) Racial
and socioeconomic disparities Whatever the health effects
environmental hazards have on those who lived near facilities that generate
them, the impact on workers is generally more severe. Workplace exposure is
generally more direct, continual and concentrated. It is estimated that as many
as 50,000 to 70,000 workers in the United States die from occupational diseases
annually, and new cases of work-related ailments are believed to be between
125,000 and 350,000 each year. It is no secret that the
poor and the people of color are usually hired for the worst jobs. These hiring
practices have many consequences. Exposure to environmental hazards is just one,
albeit an important one. Individuals in these racial and economic groups often
occupy the most strenuous and hazardous jobs. Such jobs are also likely to be
those that pose the greatest risk of exposure to chemicals and substances that
can be detrimental to one’s health. African Americans and other
people of color, in particular, have been found to bear a disproportionate share
of occupational risks emanating from environmental hazards in the workplace. For
instance, researchers have learned that African Americans have a 37
percent greater chance of suffering an occupationally-induced injury or illness,
and a 20 percent greater chance of dying from occupational disease or injury,
than do white workers. Black workers are almost twice as likely to be partially
disabled because of job-related injuries or illness. Studies of industries where
large numbers of African American workers are employed reveal a significantly
disproportionate exposure to cancer-causing substances. (African American
workers in these industries also have elevated levels of several types of
cancer.) A study of 6,500 rubber workers in a tire manufacturing plant in Akron,
Ohio, found that 27 percent of African American workers had been exposed to
dust, chemicals and vapor particles that contained toxins: only 3 percent of the
white workers experienced similar exposure. In a study of 59,000 steel
workers, it was revealed that 89 percent of nonwhite coke plants employees had
been assigned to coke oven area (one of the most hazardous aspects of steel
production) while only 32 percent of white employees in the coke area expected
cancer related death rate. A U.S. Public Health
Department study of chromate workers found that the expected cancer mortality
rate for African American was alarming 80 percent; it was 14.29 percent for
whites. Similar findings were discerned in a cancer mortality study of coastal
Georgia residents. This study discovered that African American shipyard workers
had a lung cancer rate two times higher than expected. A pattern of industrial
exposure described above has been observed in the agricultural sector as well,
where an estimated 313,000 farm workers in the United States may suffer from
pesticide-related illnesses each year. Effects
of pesticides to farmworkers Ivette Perpecto calculates
that 90 percent of the approximately two million U.S. farm workers are people of
color. For a great many years, researchers have found that most farm pesticide
exposures occur among low-income Latino and African American migrant workers.
Agriculture has become the third most dangerous job in the United States.
According to the National Safety Council, the death rate in agriculture is 66
per 10,000. Workers in this sector, who are mostly low income individuals of
color, have some of the most dangerous and least- protected jobs. In California – home to the
largest agricultural economy in the United States - farm work is conducted with
a workforce of about 600,000 men and women. Out of these figures, almost 50
percent or half of the work force - 300,000 are children who are working in the
fields. (Department of Health and Human Services, 1990). Although the average
annual income of California farmworkers is slightly higher than the national
average, the cost of living in many agricultural areas is also high. Many farm
workers live in “labor camps” where large families often share one-or two room
shelters near agricultural fields. Jobs performed by
farmworkers in California range from field preparation to planting, weeding,
irrigating, pruning, harvesting and product packaging. Many of California’s
Speciality crops (e.g. strawberries, grapes, broccoli, cutflowers) require
labor-intensive field preparation, maintenance and harvesting- in contrast to
highly-mechanized production of field crops such as wheat and soybeans. This
labor-intensive management increases the potential for farmworkers’ direct
contact with pesticides at many stages including fumigants; overhead application
of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides’ dusting plants with pesticides prior
to harvest; and post harvest treatment and hadling. Farmworkers are often
responsible for mixing and applying pesticides both in the field where they work
and from application in neighboring fields. The findings and those from
other studies led the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Hazards and
Health ( NIOSH) to conclude that “minority workers” tend to encounter a
disproportionately greater number of serious safety hazards because they are
employed in especially dirty and dangerous jobs. NISOH’s conclusion is supported
by data indicating that mortality from accurately hazardous work exposure among
men of color is 50 percent higher that it is among white men. In addition to the
workplace, people of color, particularly those who are economically distressed,
are also exposed more frequently and severely to environmental hazards where
they live, learn and play.
Environmental hazards and foods Health risks from
contaminated food is generally greater for low-income groups that are mostly
people of color than from individuals from other socioeconomic groups. In
Detroit, for example, people of color from low-income groups were found to
consume the greatest amount of fish contaminated by municipal and industrial
toxins dumped in Michigan’s surface water. These findings echo a 1989 report by
the Kellog Foundation which noted that potentially cancer-causing or
nerve-destroying substances like PCB now found in many fish are at a critical
levels in the blood of one fourth of the children age five and under in some
cities. The disaproportionate
risk-exposure that the people of color and low-income groups, frequently
experience because of food contamination is not however limited to the inner
cities. Studies of dietary preferences among Navajo suggest that they regularly
consume food products contaminated with both radiation and lead 44. The Chippewa
take similar risks with their food supply. Mining activities adjacent to their
lands threaten toxic contamination of the fish, deer and wild rice that make up
a major portion of the food supply for Chippewa tribe. Analysis of databases
maintained by the agencies studying the California water quality shows that
pesticide detection is common. One hundred one pesticides and related compounds
have been detected in state drinking water sources over the past ten years.
Thirty-one have been detected in more than ten sources and seven more than 100
sources. Pesticide contamination is
worst in Central Valley (in central California) but occurs throughout the state.
Pesticides have been detected in sources of water suppliers serving 16.5 million
people In 46 of California’s 58
counties, only 40 of the 600 water supplies that have been detected pesticides
in their water sources use the expensive treatment facilities that effectively
reduce the concentration of pesticides in water. From 1920 to the late
1960's Filipino farm workers used to work in these areas. But the demography has
changed. Most of the Filipinos are now in government and private services and
there is a small number of Filipinos in the work fields of the western states of
California. We might think that it’s good that there are less Filipinos in the
workfields because more and more Latinos from South and Central America are
working in these poisoned fields. To think of this is not only bad because these
farm workers are humans. What is clear is that
environmental justice is a concern of all, not only for Filipinos in America.
Posted by Bulatlat Sources: © 2004 Bulatlat
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Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante-USA)
Posted by Bulatlat
Recommendations of the California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Advisory Committee on Environmental Justice to the Cal/EPA Interagency Working
Group on Environmental Justice, July 2003.
Fields of Poison- California Farmworkers and Pesticides, 1999.
Disrupting the Balance, Ecological Impacts of Pesticides in California,
Pesticide Action Network, 1999.
Toxics on Tap, Pesticides in California Drinking Water Sources, 1999