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Farmworker Justice Seeks Pesticide Safety Agenda in 2007-08 Farm Bill Farmworkers suffer from the highest rate of toxic chemical injuries of any workers in the U.S. Occupational safety protections in federal laws remain inadequate. Farmworker Justice seized the opportunity presented by the 2007 Farm Bill to seek pesticide safety provisions for the benefit of farmworkers. The Farm Bill was last enacted in 2002; it contains many programs, including agribusiness subsidies of tens of billions of dollars per year. There are significant obstacles to opening up the Farm Bill to farmworkers' interests. The traditional subsidies for "major commodities" (capital-intensive crops such as cotton, soybeans, rice, corn, etc.) dominate the Farm Bill debate. Due to limitations on the federal budget, it is difficult to find additional resources for nutrition, conservation, or research. The traditional subsidized crop growers oppose cuts in their subsidies. Fruit and vegetable ("specialty crop") growers, however, are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in government assistance, some of which is supported by the White House. Farmworker Justice developed an agenda and an action plan to inject immigrant farmworkers into the debate. Click here to read Farmworker Justice’s “A Pesticide Safety Agenda for Farmworkers.” In the House, Rep. Baca (D.-Cal.) introduced the NOURISH Act, HR 2401, which included the major pesticide policy reforms sought by Farmworker Justice on behalf of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and other proposals of particular interest to the Latino community. We appreciate the support of Rep. Joe Baca (D.-Calif.), the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee’s Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry, as well as the Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the senior Californian on the Agriculture Committee. More broadly, Rep. Kind (D.-Wisc.) and Rep. Flake (R.-Ariz.) offered a proposal that would have substantially reduced traditional agricultural subsidies and supported more conservation, nutrition and other programs, while reducing overall spending. At the request of Farmworker Justice, Environmental Working Group and others, Rep. Kind and Flake included our pesticide safety provisions in their amendment. Click here to see a description of these provisions. Unfortunately, the traditionalists on agricultural subsidies won in the House and the Kind-Flake amendment was defeated. The House version, which was passed in July 2007, did not include our farmworker protections in its bill. The House Farm Bill for the most part perpetuates the subsidy system that benefits the capital-intensive "major commodities" including wheat, sugar cane, soybeans, corn, and cotton. However, to gain support of influential businesses and legislators, the House bill offered new financial support to labor-intensive fruit and vegetable growers amounting to over $400 million. The Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Sen. Tom Harkin (D.-Iowa), included our pesticide research proposals in the committee’s version of the Farm Bill. The full Senate in December approved a Farm Bill that included these research projects. The pesticide record-keeping proposal was not included but the research would be very valuable. The research trace the links between pesticide exposure and farmworker health, develop new technology to test pesticide residues on crops in the fields to prevent early re-entry, develop better medical testing for suspected poisoning victims, and study safer alternatives to toxic pesticides. The next step in this process is a House-Senate conference committee that should take place soon to iron out the differences between the two bills. Farmworker Justice is hopeful that the pesticide safety research project in the Senate bill will be included in the final Farm Bill. President Bush has threatened to veto the Farm Bill, which will likely lead to further negotiations to revise the bill and pass it. Please stay tuned to our webpage for further updates
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