empowering farmworkers to improve their living and working conditions since 1981

Pushing for Better Policies on Pesticides

Newsletters - Spring 2010 Newsletter

In recent months, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sought public comment on several new policy considerations.  Taken as a whole, these policy initiatives could provide increased protections against pesticides
for farmworkers and their families.

Farmworker Justice has worked closely with other advocates to comment on the proposals.  We will provide updates on EPA's final decisions as they are made public in the coming
months.

• Last October, Farmworker Justice and Earthjustice filed a petition asking EPA to assess and mitigate pesticide drift to places where kids are present. The petition asked EPA to evaluate children's exposure to pesticide drift and to adopt, on an interim basis, requirements for "no-spray" buffer zones near homes, schools, day-care centers, and parks. EPA published the petition in the Federal Register and requested comments by March 5.

• EPA also proposed guidance for new pesticide labeling to reduce off-target spray and dust drift. Spray drift has been and continues to be a problematic source of exposure for those who live near farm fields, orchards, vineyards and other pesticide application sites. FJ and other advocates urged EPA to phase out drift- prone pesticides and phase in safe alternatives for growing food.

• In December 2009, the EPA announced in a Federal Register notice the availability of a policy paper that revised risk assessment methods for farmworkers and their children regarding pesticide uses and exposures. FJ and other farmworker advocates supported many of the principles outlined in the paper as an important step towards recognizing the susceptibility of farmworkers and their children to aggregate and cumulative exposures to pesticides. Advocates also urged EPA to include as part of its risk assessments an evaluation of less-toxic alternatives available for pest control and to facilitate transitions to safer products and method

• Also in December, the EPA initiated rulemaking to increase public availability of the identities of the inert ingredients in pesticide products. Inert ingredients are ingredients that do not kill or control a pest, but are designed to make a pesticide easier to apply or to stay on the crop longer. In some cases, those ingredients may be equally or more toxic to health and the environment than the active ingredients, but pesticide manufacturers generally do not identify them on pesticide labels. 

FJ and other advocates are encouraging EPA to require disclosure of inert ingredients in order to provide the public with important information about potential health hazards, and to encourage manufacturers to phase out use of toxic substances. The Northwest Coalition forAlternatives to Pesticides has more information and materials on inert ingredients in pesticidesat: www.pesticide.org

In March, we collaborated with Pesticide Action Network and the Farm Worker Pesticide Project to circulate a petition urging the EPA to ban all uses of chlorpyrifos, a widely used nerve toxin pesticide. In 2000, after studying the risks posed to children by chlorpyrifos, EPA prohibited most home and residential uses of the pesticide. But chlorpyrifos remains widely used in U.S. agriculture, and exposure to rural and farmworker kids continues. Even very small doses to chlorpyrifos can be toxic to humans, especially at critical periods of fetal development when it can disrupt hormonal systems and cause permanent developmental harms. More information on the petition is available on Pesticide Action Network North America's website at: www.panna.org.