Farmworkers
at Risk from Pesticide Exposure in NC
North Carolina agriculture relies
on migrant and seasonal farmworkers to produce our annual
harvest. North Carolina ranks sixth in the country
in the number of agricultural employees, with an estimated
150,000 workers who plant, tend, and harvest crops in every
region of the state.
Conventional agriculture also
relies heavily on pesticides – it is conservatively
estimated that 62 million pounds of pesticides are applied
to North Carolina crops every year. Agricultural employees
are often exposed to pesticides on the job, which can increase
their risk of many kinds of health problems, from rashes
and nausea to cancer and birth defects. Agricultural
families are at very high risk for exposure to pesticides.
Workers can inadvertently take toxic pesticide residues home
on contaminated clothes, hair, and skin. Because most workers
also live very close to the fields, they are also subject
to pesticide drift at home. Once in the home, pesticide residues
are very easily picked up by small children, who are especially
sensitive to health damage from pesticide exposure. Subjecting
workers to hazardous pesticide exposure on the job puts both
the workers and their families at risk for serious health
consequences, and ultimately hurts North Carolina agriculture.
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In 2005 several farmworker families employed
in North Carolina by Ag-Mart,
Inc., a Florida produce giant, gave birth to babies
with severe birth defects. Upon investigation, hundreds
of violations of state pesticide laws and federal Worker
Protection Standards were found on Ag-Mart's farms in
both NC and FL, setting the record for the highest pesticide
fine in North Carolina history. Repeated exposure to
unsafe amounts of pesticides during pregnancy is the
suspected culprit in this case, which has exposed many
of the flaws in our system of worker protection and pesticide
enforcement, including: |
- No confidentiality / no protection
from retaliation. Agricultural
workers cannot file confidential complaints to the state
about violations of state or federal standards for pesticide
safety and fair labor. Workers also risk being fired or
suffering other forms of retaliation from their employers
if they complain, because farmworkers are not covered in
the Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act (REDA). Without
these protections, farmworkers cannot safely report pesticide
misuse or worker mistreatment in the workplace.
>>See
text of the Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act (REDA)
- Low fines. Fines for pesticide
violations are extremely low, making it cheaper for big
employers to simply flout the rules and pay fines than
to actually comply with the law. While other pesticide
users, such as golf courses, must pay $2,000 per pesticide
violation, agricultural employers pay only $500. Another
loophole in the law requires that violations be "willful" in
order to issue a fine.
North Carolina’s enforcement system relies
on the honesty of the majority of growers who carefully comply
with Worker Protection Standards, and lets bad actors like
Ag-Mart off the hook when they flout our rules. When there
are no consequences, bad actors can poison workers in our
state without fear of retribution – a state of affairs
that should be intolerable to consumers as well as to workers.
Take action today: Let your
Representatives know that they should support
legislation to improve pesticide protections for farmworkers. >>Take
Action today
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