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Congress Enacts New Pesticide Safety Research Program in Farm Bill

Thursday, 08 October 2009 15:13

Health & Safety - Pesticide Safety

Farmworkers won a legislative victory when Congress passed a new pesticide research program in the 2008 Farm Bill. The purpose of the Farm Bill is to establish agricultural policies for a five-year period. The Farm Bill is best known for providing subsidies for producers of corn, cotton, peanuts and other commodities. It also authorizes spending for the Food Stamp program. While the Farm Bill often includes issues such as conservation and land management, farmworkers are rarely covered in this legislation.

Farmworker Justice now seeks appropriations to pay for the pesticide safety research to be carried out by government agencies and possibly private researchers. For a minimal investment, we can achieve enormous benefits to farmworker health and our health care system.

Why we need more research on pesticides' effects on farmworkers

Farmworkers suffer from the highest rate of chemical-related injuries of any occupational groups in the U.S. There are an estimated 10,000 - 20,000 cases of physician-diagnosed pesticide poisonings among farmworkers each year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yet most cases of pesticide poisoning are never diagnosed both because it is extremely difficult to diagnose accurately pesticide poisoning and because many farmworkers are unable to obtain medical assistance. Workers' compensation only covers agricultural workers in about half the states and few workers are provided with health insurance by their employers. Migrant health centers treat only about 15% of farmworkers and their family members. Moreover, since they earn on average about $12,500 per year farmworkers often lack the financial resources to secure medical treatment.

Farmworkers are exposed to pesticides when they work long hours in pesticide-treated fields, suffer from direct spray or drift or mix, load or apply these chemicals. Children of farmworkers are exposed to pesticides that drift from the fields to school grounds or homes, or when parents inadvertently "take-home" pesticide residues on their hair, skin, shoes or clothing.

Pesticides used on our nation's farm lands are inadequately monitored and regulated. For many toxic pesticides, federal law does not require employers to keep records of pesticide use. Warning labels on pesticides fail to inform users of long-term health dangers. Research into the impact of pesticides on farmworkers' health, diagnostic tests that would confirm overexposure to most classes of pesticides and tests that would signify when it is "safe" to re-enter a field, are unduly limited.

History of the campaign

Farmworker Justice launched a campaign in 2007 to inject immigrant farmworkers into the debate over the five-year Farm Bill with the goal of winning research and substantive protections on pesticide safety. FJ sponsored educational briefings for Congressional staff, built a coalition to support reforms, brought farmworkers to Washington, D.C. to tell the story of pesticide dangers, and advocated for legislation. As a consequence, Congress established a new pesticide safety research program that will benefit hundreds of thousands of farmworkers.

The debate on the Farm Bill lasted far longer than was expected. Congress repeatedly extended the 2002 Farm Bill past its September 2007 expiration. With help from Sen. Tom Harkin, the Senate Agriculture Committee adopted a research agenda proposal. A House-Senate Conference Committee wrote the final bill, which altered our program's language still further. Although President Bush vetoed the Farm bill, Congress overrode the veto by marshalling a 2/3 vote in the bill's favor. (A clerical error that required a second round of Congressional voting, Presidential veto and override does not affect the pesticide safety program.)

Farmworkers have another battle to fight: we must win an "appropriation" of money to pay for the pesticide safety research to be carried out by government agencies and possibly private researchers.

What the pesticide research program would do:

We are working to win approval from the appropriations committees to fund the following research:

• Longitudinal studies of farm workers' and their children's increased risk of cancer or birth defects due to occupational pesticide exposure. A series of studies, supported by the National Cancer Institute, show that a farmworker study would be feasible.

• Research on safer alternatives to toxic pesticides.

• Development of tests on the safety of fields after pesticide applications. There is currently no accurate way to determine when a pesticide-treated field is safe to enter. Pesticides degrade over time but current time frames for re-entry into sprayed fields (restricted entry intervals) often lack sufficient scientific basis.

• Research to develop biomarkers and clinical tests to diagnose overexposure to pesticides. Currently, there is only one simple clinical test to detect overexposure to two classes of pesticides, organophosphates and carbamates (i.e., the cholinesterase blood test). In the absence of such clinical tools, pesticide-induced illnesses caused by other products often go undiagnosed and unreported.

Although we will still have work to do, the legislation is a substantial victory made possible by the generosity of donors too numerous to name and the support of many organizations and individuals.

The Farm Bill's official name is the Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, H.R. 6124. The new "Agricultural Worker Safety Research Initiative" is in Title VII, section 7204(a)(38).

In June 2007, Farmworker Justice sponsored a Congressional briefing to highlight the problems and solutions to farmworker pesticide poisoning. Speakers included a farmworker poisoned by pesticides, a lawyer representing the parents of babies born with severe defects after exposure in the fields, a farmworker health expert, and Farmworker Justice pesticide expert Shelley Davis.

Read a letter to Congress on behalf of 100 organizations supporting the Pesticide Safety Agenda