I am an AmeriCorps Member, and I Will get Things Done!

AmeriCorps members are hard at work once again, providing health and safety training to farmworkers in states throughout the country. So far this year, our 18 SAFE AmeriCorps members have trained 330 farmworkers on Worker Protection Standard (WPS) and 439 on Project LEAF (Limiting Exposures Around Families).

Just last month, AFOP’s Health & Safety Programs met the 18 members who will provide essential health and safety trainings for farmworkers over the next year. Some of the most energetic members to date, they gathered for the weeklong Annual SAFE AmeriCorps Orientation at the National Chávez Center. While five of them are returning members serving for their second or third year, 13 new members accepted the challenge of serving farmworker communities for the first time.

During the week, members participated in multiple trainings, activities, and workshops. They learned to be successful trainers in pesticide safety, WPS, heat stress training, take home exposure, and other health trainings. Kevin Keaney, Chief of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs Worker Protection, and our EPA program officer Ashley Nelsen, also attended some of the sessions. Both addressed our members on issues related to pesticides, future changes in the WPS, and how the work they do will impact the farmworker community. Jesús Gamboa, AFOP board member and Chief Operating Officer of Proteus, Inc. in California, also gave an inspirational message to the members.

2012 AmeriCorps Members with Kevin Keaney, Ashley Nelson, and AFOP staff

During the course of this year, a total of 30 members will commit to serve and empower farmworkers in Florida, Maryland, Idaho, Maine, Virginia, New Mexico, California, Arizona, and North Carolina. They will offer different types of trainings, health workshops, translation services, and special activities.

Overall, the members will dedicate 36,000 hours to farmworkers. Throughout the year, they will strive to meet and exceed their goal of training 12,600 farmworkers on Pesticide Safety; 3,760 on Project LEAF; 1,578 farmworkers on heat stress prevention through Proyecto Sol; and 560 farmworkers on other health-related topics.

Health trainings, are not the only area SAFE AmeriCorps members are reaching farmworkers in: 2,100 farmworkers will be impacted through direct services, such as translation and transportation; 1,046 farmworkers will receive referrals to other services or agencies; 1,572 partnerships with local service providers, as well as academic, and religious institutions will be built; 420 volunteers will be recruited; and 56 activities will be held all around the country to commemorate César Chávez day, Farmworker Awareness Week, as well as activities around other correlated events and dates.

Given the energy and determination of this group, we are confident they will exceed expectations and do an excellent job serving their farmworker communities.  At the end of the week-long orientation,  the members took part in a graduation ceremony led by Paul Chávez, President and Chair of the Chávez Foundation. There, they took their oath as members of AmeriCorps, loudly proclaiming: “I am an AmeriCorps member, and I will get things done!” We look forward to seeing the continued results.

For more information or learn how to participate in the SAFE AmeriCorps program, visit our website.

It’s Not Just the Farmers vs. the Consumers

Recently, I read an article about fairness in our food system, and whether defending the farmer or the eater meant betrayal to either one. Not until the end of the article do “others” enter the equation. Farmworkers are frequently an afterthought in food policies and, at times, they are even excluded from the conversation all together. I was happy to see them recognized, however briefly, but I propose bringing the “others” in at the beginning of the argument. By adding a third party—the farmworker—it begins to get to the core of what fair really means.

Although a novel idea for some, I cannot take credit for this. Many people before me have been drawing attention to the fact that there are more than two players in our food system, and I think it is important enough to revisit. Often times, farmworkers are left out of an equation in which they play a vital role, as seen in the agricultural communities of Alabama and Georgia. If this conversation is truly centered upon fairness, we must expand the conversation beyond the dichotomous argument of whether fairness for the farmer means injustice for the consumer or vice versa.

Farmworkers are among the least paid and under-protected workers in America. The average farmworker family of four earns just $17,500 annually, well below the national poverty level for a family of this size. Sadly, farmworkers typically can’t even afford to buy the very fruits and vegetables they spend their days harvesting. Because of their low wages, most farmworker families do not have access to affordable daycare. Often times, this results in families bringing their children to work alongside them in the fields; more hands hopefully equal more money. At best, farmworker children hired as workers earn the same low wages as their parents, though they often end up losing much more.

Fatalities in farm work reached 596 in 2010, which constitutes the highest fatality rate of any industry at 26.8 per 100,000 workers.  The fatality rate for young agricultural workers is especially significant compared to their peers employed in nonagricultural industries. Between 2003 and 2010, 130 children, 15 years of age and younger, died on the job. Seventy-three percent of those deaths were children employed in agriculture. If the conversation is going to revolve around fairness, where is the justice in a child being able to legally work in agriculture for an unlimited number of hours outside of school at the age of 12, under conditions deemed illegal in nearly every other industry?

Beginning in 2009, the Children in the Fields Campaign mobilized a grassroots initiative across the country to improve the quality of life for migrant and seasonal farmworker children. The campaign seeks to raise awareness of the plight of these young workers and ensure they have a seat at the table with decision-makers in their communities. Much has happened at the national and state level concerning farmworkers. As the public becomes educated and more involved, there will be further conversations on who picked our food and how that food makes its way to our tables. As witnessed in North Carolina with YouthSpeak 2011, there is a great deal to learn. As Drakage, the author of the post points out, “The only way we can get there is through building a movement that derives strength by being for both. For youth and elders; for food access and for food traditions; for farmers, workers, and eaters. One relies on and strengthens the other.” America’s farmworker children can no longer continue to be marginalized.

So I ask you, what do you suggest be done about the growing challenges of production, sustainability, accessibility, and equity? These are not isolated issues affecting just one group of society. We are all affected; therefore, we all need to be a part of the solution. My counterparts in the fair food movement are thrilled, as am I, that a conversation has begun about where our food comes from and how it’s picked. But talk alone does not provide affordable and fair food. It’s obvious from the article that we have a broken food system that is failing everyone involved. The farmer is having a difficult time staying in business, the consumer is having trouble making ends meet, while the farmworker continues to be exploited. Food is one of the few common denominators among all people, so shouldn’t we all have a hand in creating a food system that is beneficial to us all?

Learn more about child labor in U.S. agriculture and join us in supporting fair food and advocating for fair living wages for all farmworkers.

National Children’s Dental Health Month

The American Dental Association (ADA) sponsors the National Children’s Dental Health Month to raise awareness about the importance of children’s oral health each February. Farmworkers’ poor oral health is  a silent epidemic in the United States; many thousands suffer from painful infections, untreated caries (or cavities), and other oral health problems.

A 2007 study in North Carolina found that 80% of farmworkers had not received dental services within the past year, compared to 48% of adults and 22% of children in the general population. A 2005 study in Southern Illinois revealed that 69% of migrant farmworkers had at least one decayed tooth and more than 50% had three or more decayed teeth. Farmworker children suffer from oral health complications, just like their parents. An article in the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health showed that migrant farmworker children are 48% more likely to have decayed teeth surfaces and 47% less likely to have filled surfaces than U.S. school children. Childhood tooth problems can lead to long-term health complications in adulthood.

An especially big problem among farmworker children is the rate of Early Childhood Caries (ECC), or Baby Bottle Tooth Decay (BBTD). ECC is often caused by babies being lulled to sleep while sucking on a bottle, causing the liquid to pool inside the child’s mouth, often resulting in tooth decay. Many farmworkers bottle feed their children as demanding work schedules often restrict breastfeeding opportunities and they want to soothe their children during hectic times. Furthermore, WIC subsidizes infant formula, which can make it a reasonable expense for farmworker families. Use of baby bottles often continues into the toddler years, substituting infant formula for sugary drinks and juices, which can be a major culprit in tooth decay.

Furthermore, appropriate dental hygiene and regular visits to the dentist are often lacking among farmworker families. This is predominately due to socioeconomic restrictions, lack of time, constant migration, and lack of knowledge about dental care for children. Dental health issues early on in life can lead to long-term health problems, such as extended periods of pain, tooth extractions, and crooked teeth.

Most farmworkers have limited English abilities, which can place them at a great disadvantage if health information is English-only. The ADA has launched a bilingual campaign geared towards children and teens. It aims to encourage youth to brush their teeth twice daily, clean in between teeth, limit snacks and opt for nutritious foods, and visit the dentist regularly so that you can “Rock Your Smile!”

There are some other programs that also focus on farmworkers’ oral health by erasing some of the barriers farmworkers currently face in attaining care. Healthy Smiles for a Lifetime (Sonrisas Saludables Para Toda La Vida), which is an oral health training curriculum for lay health workers, allows community members to help prevent dental health issues in their own communities. The bilingual campaign is especially heartening, given the great need for this information in the farmworker community.  Tooth Mobile, a non-profit that brings affordable dental health care to underserved, hard to reach communities, is another opportunity to improve farmworker’s dental health by eliminating transportation barriers.

If you are interested in helping improve the dental health of children in farmworker communities, we encourage you to learn about what opportunities  are available in your community to help.

Language is Power

“Lang se pouvwa, lavi ak enstriman kilti , enstriman dominasyon ak liberasyon,” –Angela Carter

“El lenguaje es poder, vida y el instrumento de la cultura; el instrumento del dominio y de la liberación,” –Angela Carter

 “Language is power, life and the instrument of culture—the instrument of domination and liberation,” –Angela Carter

What implications does language access have for health education? How can speaking a language other than English affect safety in the workplace? For people working with farmworker communities, we ask ourselves these questions almost subconsciously, so accustomed to planning a Spanish-speakers only pesticide safety training, or finding English classes for new clients in order to help them compete in an English-dominated job market.  Spanish, while spoken by at least 75% of farmworkers, and English (21% of farmworkers) are not the only languages represented in the increasingly diverse agricultural communities all around the country.

According to AFOP Health & Safety Programs’ training statistics, farmworkers speaking Burmese and Russian (in Virginia), Chinese (Maryland), Vietnamese (Iowa), and Navajo (New Mexico) received heat stress training through our Susan Harwood Training Grant with OSHA last year. Health and safety trainers in many states, including Florida and Maryland, worked with Haitian Creole speakers. Others have given trainings interpreted in Mexican indigenous languages like Mixteco and Mam—a Mayan language spoken by half a million people. While the numbers of farmworkers representing these languages are a minority, it is important to consider how to continue to effectively reach out to people who communicate in the more than 50 different languages reported in the fields in order to convey vital health and safety information.

Language barriers can make work in agriculture even more hazardous than it already is for the millions of people who labor in farms, fields, nurseries, and packing houses.

• Chemical labels and safety fact sheets are most often English-only, including those of pesticides
• Warnings signs lose effectiveness if they are only in English, if the workers speak a non-written language, or if they have extremely limited literacy
• The dominant view among farmworkers is it is solely the boss’s responsibility to keep workers safe
• Rhythm of farm work makes it difficult to track minority populations who migrate or who start farm work because of their placement in different areas of the country as refugees. Also, according to researchers Arcury, Estrada and Quandt in North Carolina, “new hires must be trained when the work is most intense and little time is available for training,” leaving less time to accommodate for language differences.

To accommodate for these hazards, both OSHA and the EPA have created laws requiring training in languages or given in a manner employees understand. Only the Worker Protection Standard (WPS) for pesticide safety requires signage to be bilingual in English and Spanish, with the option of more written languages left up to employers who recognize a need.

Inextricably tied to language is culture—the instrument of culture and, with it, the implication of control over information, as Angela Carter describes in the quote above. One way AFOP health and safety trainers are breaking down language barriers is by recognizing the need for cultural understanding in the farmworker community. Christina Manuelito from HELP-New Mexico in Gallup writes:

“We service farmworkers that speak Zuni, Navajo, and the Keres languages of the Acoma and Laguna pueblo people(s). [When we have used interpreters for heat stress training,] the use of an interpreter for the training was only positive. They made the training fun by using relevant stories. The participants giggled as they understood. The older people have labored outdoors in extreme weather situations, so they could relate.”

She reminds us, “Language barriers can cause confusion or misinterpretation of the message. Making the message relatable in different situations keeps clients interested.”

In a recent case, language barriers at the work place paired with lack of intercultural understanding had a disastrous outcome. The tragic events in a Virginia lumber yard remind us how unacknowledged cultural and language differences can be a barrier to worker communication, promoting suspicion and misunderstanding among a linguistically diverse workforce.  The man shot several of his coworkers and then turned the gun on himself; a letter was found describing his frustrations with Spanish-speaking colleagues.  It is difficult to know for sure how these deaths could have been avoided, but employers who promote language and cultural sensitivity between English and Spanish speakers as a way to increase worker communication could find increased productivity and comradery among employees laboring in agriculture.

Carrie Smith, from Partners in Community/New England Farmworkers Council describes the needs she sees in the agricultural community in her region of the states for language access:

“Speakers of other languages have the opportunity to attend free English classes through many non-profit organizations in Manchester and surrounding towns, but, unfortunately, farm workers do not get the ‘farm vocabulary’ in these classes.  Most of our farmworkers learn by experience and through [coworkers] about safety and health.  If local non-profits, who teach English, were provided with ‘farm vocabulary’ they could aid in the protection of farmworkers.  Providing ‘danger’ or other ‘warning signs’ in languages other than English and Spanish for farms could help protect and keep farmworkers safe.  Our area is populated by several different types of minority languages including, but not limited to: Bhutanese, African [languages] (several different dialects), Asian [languages], and languages spoken in Iraq.  It would be good to survey farms to get the most accurate information for what languages are spoken on these farms.  Farm owners should be provided with a list of non-profits and other organizations in their areas, which offer free English to speakers of other languages.  This should be posted in a common area for the farmworkers.”

Carrie concludes that, “as a whole, more effort should be made to provide services for minorities, but especially to those who have careers that can have dangerous outcomes if education or training is provided inadequately.”

Languages, while often seen as barriers in the aforementioned ways to a healthy workplace, should not prevent workers in the United States from receiving the information they need. I am sure all of AFOP’s health and safety trainers can remember the look on the face of at least one of their trainees when she or he finally understood a difficult concept in her/his own language, taken in through the lens of her/his own experience.  For speakers of languages other than Spanish and English in farmworker communities, this moment may happen infrequently. Let’s do our best to ensure all workers have this opportunity.

Resources from the EPA:

Pesticide materials in different languages

Workbooks for English for Speakers of other Languages (ESL) farm safety

Methyl Iodide on the Chopping Block?

“So scientists like myself – and I’m not the only one – don’t have to think very hard to just see in the published literature, this [Methyl Iodide] is a pretty strong toxin. And so, when it got approved, we were all kind of shocked.” Kathy Collins, Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California-Berkeley

While all pesticides are designed to harm living things, there are some that are considered more dangerous than others. One of those pesticides is the controversial chemical methyl iodide, which has been used in strawberry fields in California since 2010. Many environmental groups and health professionals warned state regulators about the dangers of methyl iodide before it was approved at the end of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s term;  they were ignored. The state’s own scientific advisors, as well as an independent panel of scientists, warned that the chemical can cause cancer, among other dangerous health effects. Now these groups, and others such as EarthJustice, are asking Alameda County Superior Court to put an end to its use.

Methyl iodide replaced methyl bromide, a fumigant, which was found to deplete the ozone layer. Even though a lot of scientific literature exists showing the negative health consequences of methyl iodide, the product was approved without following California’s own rigid regulatory process. The California Environmental Quality Act would have required alternative options to be presented before approving the chemical. With the pressure of the governor’s term ending and the fact that California’s strawberry fields are a $1.6 billion dollar industry, providing perhaps the biggest market for methyl iodide, the chemical was approved.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch has given the state attorneys one week to draft a brief to persuade him that the Department of Pesticide Regulation is not required to follow the California Environmental Quality Act, which would have allowed them to propose methyl iodide as an option without providing an alternative option. Earthjustice lawyers will then have a week to respond. The ruling will likely not be based on the mountain of scientific data showing the dangers of methyl iodide on human health, but rather it will likely be based on a process technicality. In this case, that means including alternatives to methyl iodide or proposing to approve the chemical at more conservative exposure levels. The judge will issue a final ruling on whether the state violated California law sometime in February.

Methyl iodide’s health risks are nothing to be silent about: the chemical poses the most direct risks to farmworkers and those individuals in the surrounding communities because of the amount applied, its consistency, and its tendency to drift through the air- reaching many humans beyond its target. Methyl iodide has been shown to cause late term miscarriages and contaminate groundwater. Moreover, it is clearly a carcinogen, with scientists using it to create cancer cells in laboratories. It is also on California’s official list of known carcinogenic chemicals and has been linked to serious risks in neurological and reproductive health.

Pesticides are dangerous to farmworkers day in and day out. Many have been linked to skin rashes, nausea, and vomiting. Some pesticides have been linked to early term miscarriages, others to different forms of cancer and neurological problems. Pesticides are designed to harm life and to kill pests and fungi. Methyl iodide is the worst perpetrator that is known to harm individuals in direct contact with it, such as farmworkers, as well as innocent community members who fall under the dangerous pesticide drift. California farmworkers, as well as farmworker and environmental justice groups everywhere, are anxiously waiting for the judge’s decision.

Children in the Fields Campaign Youth Council Members Attend 4-H Retreat

Four Children in the Fields Campaign youth council members participated in an overnight 4-H Leadership Retreat on December 9th and 10th. They attended workshops on a variety of interesting themes including ethics, Robert’s Rule of Order, and leadership. The youth council members remarked that they felt very welcomed and enjoyed the retreat. In fact, they had such a great experience that they have already begun asking when the next event is!

Here are personal testimonies from some of the youth who participated:

“We arrived and ate at a lunchroom and later entered a building and did some icebreakers. The following day we did some workshops and learned about ethics, starting new a business, and business handling. I really liked meeting new people and the welcome they gave us.”
–Jose, 14-years-old

“What I liked about 4-H was the workshops they had, which taught me a lot of things I didn’t know, like information about the Internet. For example, you have to be very careful about what you put on the Internet because if you put information up there about your life people can use that against you or even hurt you.”
–Ingrid, 16-years-old

“We arrived at Plymouth, NC, and as we arrived to the 4-H retreat, we walked into a big building and went to the lunchroom to eat dinner. We were there first and we felt like we didn’t belong. After dinner, we went to a different building where we did icebreakers. During the icebreakers, we started to feel comfortable around the other participants. The next day we did some workshops and learned about different subjects. One subject that really caught my attention was learning about law, because in the future I want to be an Immigration lawyer. At the end of the day I was upset because we had to go home and I didn’t want to leave any of the wonderful people I had met. I would love to do 4-H activities again!”
–Mildre, 16-years-old

This event was also significant as the Children in the Fields Campaign has, at times, been regarded as an initiative aimed at stopping kids from learning about farming and agriculture, which is not the case. We support children learning about agriculture and farming; it just must be done in a way that does not exploit children or require them to work under hazardous, life-threatening conditions. Furthermore, this collaboration provided an important step forward by opening up opportunities for future collaborations and creating a bridge for these farmworker youth to connect with another community of youth involved in agriculture. It also gave them the opportunity to experience and learn about agriculture in a safe and educational environment.

A special thanks to Tara Taylor, Extension Agent & 4-H Youth Development Coordinator with the North Carolina State University College of Agriculture & Life Sciences at the NC Cooperative Extension.

The Fields Claim First Life in 2012

“Every day in America, 12 people go to work and never come home. Every year in America, 3.3 million people suffer a workplace injury from which they may never recover. These are preventable tragedies that disable our workers, devastate our families, and damage our economy.” Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, DOL blog 2011

The New Year has barely started and the first farming fatality of 2012 has already occurred. Anthony Siquieros, 31, died on January 2^nd in a baling operation accident involving a power take-off shaft in Rapid City, South Dakota, leaving behind a wife and four children. His funeral was held last Saturday.

The Meade County Sheriff’s Department stated that workers were converting round hay bales into square bales when Siquieros’ clothing got caught in a power takeoff shaft. It was his first day on the job.

OSHA has no jurisdiction to investigate this tragic accident. By law, small agricultural operations, defined as a farm with less than 10 employees, are exempt from investigation after an accident or death. OSHA is required to address imminent danger situations, which are hazards that could cause death or serious physical harm. It cannot, however, vigilantly inspect all 7 million work places it covers in the United States each year. Priorities have to be set, and with those choices, unfortunately come real consequences.

The fact is that more than 12 workers are killed on the job every day according to OSHA statistics from 2010, which is the most recent data available. Fatalities in farm work reached 596 in 2010, which constitutes the highest fatality rate of any industry at 26.8 per 100,000 workers. 

The factors resulting in Siquieros’ death are still unknown. Perhaps, as it was the first day on his new job, he hadn’t been properly trained on the equipment he was using. Perhaps the safety shield of the equipment had been removed, which is a common, but very dangerous practice to speed work along. Lack of appropriate training that is culturally and linguistically sensitive, as well as failure to provide and enforce the use of safety equipment, are detrimental to occupational health and safety of workers. Accidents and deaths are also sometimes the result of insufficient supervision of inexperienced employees or employees who have taken on jobs for which they are not properly trained.

To diminish farming fatalities and injuries in 2012, there must be widespread trainings in a variety of health and safety topics that can truly reach the farmworker audience. Culturally and linguistically appropriate, interactive trainings and low-literacy, multilingual materials that are distributed before farmworkers start working are a crucial part of saving lives. AFOP’s Health & Safety Programs has already been doing that with its innovative pesticide safety trainings and heat stress prevention trainings all around the country. We hope to expand our repertoire of topics offered in the near future, thanks to a new Capacity Building Grant from the OSHA Susan Harwood funds.