Saturated: The Plague of Pesticides in Florida Fields
Even as the Farmworker Association of Florida celebrates 20 years of assistance to Florida farmworkers, it recognizes the pesticide problem is poisonous as ever.
By Cynthia M. Phoel
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| As a FWAF community organizer, Geraldine Matthews visits nurseries and farmworker camps to educate workers on pesticide safety. On her own time, Matthews conducts bake sales and fish fries to raise money to take farmworkers to Tallahassee to lobby for pesticide legislation. By: Andrew Miller/Oxfam |
Geraldine Matthews has been working on farms since she was three years old. A full-time farmworker since age seven, 54-year-old Matthews has lived with pesticides all her life. When Matthews was growing up, her mother stored baking flour and clothes in empty pesticide containers. And throughout her neighborhood, big blue pesticide bins were converted into barbecue grills.
Voice of Experience
"You won't find five women in the country who can pick and stick faster than I can," Matthews says of her own skills as a farmworker. "And I'm not bragging."
Like many farmworkers, Matthews learned about pesticides the hard way: by experiencing first-hand the effects of chemicals. "Sometimes you come home, and you shake a lot, and you cough and spit all night," Matthews says. "A lot of farmworkers keep a bucket next to their bed."
Today, Matthews is putting her knowledge of pesticides to use as a community organizer for Oxfam partner, the Farmworker Association of Florida (FWAF). For 20 years, FWAF has been working to improve wages, benefits, and conditions for Florida farmworkers, with a special focus on a huge hazard for farmworkers: pesticides. Oxfam has supported FWAF for 10 of those years, helping this vital organization expand its reach by growing its operations from a single office in Apopka to three other Florida locations, Immokalee, Plantation, and Pearson.
Over the years, several laws have been passed to protect farmworkers. Today, nurseries must post warning signs where chemicals have been recently sprayed; by law, workers cannot be asked to work in a sprayed field until a specific number of hours have passed. Still, too often warning signs are ignored. Workers are assigned to fields downwind from sprayers. Legally-required "clean" drinking water areas are located next to vats of chemicals. And rates of pesticide poisoning, injury, and death are on the rise.(1)
Same Pesticides, Different Workers
One of the challenges FWAF faces is the changing demographic of farmworkers. Many of the African American farmworkers who once worked side-by-side with Matthews have moved on to safer low-paying jobs. Meanwhile, farmworkers from Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador have migrated north to take their places.
Today, Latinos, who constitute more than 90 percent of the 300,000 to 400,000 farmworkers in Florida, are the most vulnerable population in the fields. Burdened with cultural and language barriers, extreme poverty, and lack of proper documentation(2), they are a voiceless group. Employers recognize this and assign Latino workers the most dangerous jobs, such as spraying the plants or going to work in freshly-sprayed fields.
To this end, FWAF is targeting their efforts largely at the Latino community. A full 94 percent of the 6,800 FWAF member families are Mexican, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran.
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| A full-time farmworker since the age of seven, Matthews is all too familiar with the effects of pesticides. In a single day's work with plants saturated in heavy chemicals, Matthews has lost her finger and toenails. By: Andrew Miller/Oxfam |
Plan of Attack
FWAF is attacking the pesticide problem on several fronts. In 2003, Matthews and other FWAF organizers conducted training for 780 farmworkers and organized 5,800 farmworkers in meetings and other work-related issues.
FWAF's efforts also include lobbying for legislation and improved law enforcement. In this realm, this veteran organization has realized some major gains, including the passage of the Farmworker Right to Know Act in 1994, which required Florida growers to inform farmworkers about the pesticides they were being exposed to and related hazards. When this bill expired in 2002, FWAF began campaigning for its renewal, using Oxfam's recently-published report, Like Machines in the Fields, to bolster its argument. FWAF expects the law will soon be passed.
Today, when Matthews sees the same big blue pesticide bin barbecues in Latino farmworker camps, she redoubles her efforts to make a difference. Beyond being an avid student of the different types of pesticides, beyond marching into camp after camp, showing people how to dress and urging them to take precautions, Matthews uses her evenings and weekends to conduct fish fries and bake sales to raise money to take farmworkers to Tallahassee to lobby for improved legislation.
This from a woman who knows how it feels to have the pesticides from corn eat holes in the pads of her fingers. Experience has given Matthews all the motivation she needs.
For more on farmworker rights, download Oxfam America's recent report, Like Machines in the Fields: Workers Without Rights in American Fields.
(1) A 2002 report by the United Farm Workers, Pesticide Action Network North America, and California Legal Rural Assistance Foundation asserts that lack of environmental law enforcement remains the major problem for farmworkers.
(2) The US Department of Labor estimates 52 percent of farmworkers are undocumented.