North Carolina Growers' and Extension Agents' Perceptions of Latino Farmworker Pesticide Exposure

Human Organization, Summer 2004 by Rao, Pamela, Arcury, Thomas A, Quandt, Sara A, Doran, Alicia

Pesticide exposure poses a significant health hazard to everyone who works in agriculture. Growers have more control over their own exposure risk than do the farmworkers they employ. While growers are responsible for providing a safe work environment, their perceptions of the health risk of pesticides influence the amount and quality of safety training and protection they offer to workers. This paper analyzes growers' and cooperative extension agents' perceptions of farmworker pesticide exposure. Data are from in-depth interviews conducted with growers and extension agents who work in western North Carolina. Both groups indicated that the danger of pesticide exposure is exaggerated by the media and the public. They feel that workers are at little risk of exposure because they have received training and protective equipment as required by law and because they are not in direct contact with chemicals. Their perceptions are at odds with results of other research indicating many farmworkers have not received the required training and do not always utilize protective gear. Linguistic and cultural barriers contribute to this discrepancy in perceptions and must be addressed if measures to reduce farmworker pesticide exposure are to be effective.

Key words: pesticide safety, farmworker health, Worker Protection Standard, North Carolina

Agriculture is dangerous, and its workers are confronted with the possibility of injury or illness from an array of occupational and environmental health hazards on a daily basis (Myers and Hard 1995; NSC 2002). Agricultural chemicals, including pesticides, pose a significant risk both for acute injury and for long-term, often latent, health problems. Acute injuries from spills or accidental ingestion can have health impacts ranging from dermal and eye injuries to systemic poisoning and death (Reigart and Roberts 1999). Chronic exposure to low levels of pesticides or their residues (persistent active ingredients) on plants has been linked with serious health problems such as cancer, birth defects, infertility, and neuropsychologic deficits (Baldi et al. 2001; Garry et al. 2002; Oliva, Spira, and Multigner 2001; Savitz et al. 1997; Zahm and Ward 1998; Zheng et al. 2001). Agricultural pesticides have been implicated in surface water and groundwater pollution, which creates exposure routes for workers and nonworkers alike, often well into the future (Beach et al. 1995; Tucker and Napier 1998). The vast majority of commercial crops grown in the United States have chemicals applied to them at some point in the growing cycle (Arcury and Quandt 1998), making the issue of environmental contamination and personal exposure relevant to all sectors of the industry.

An increasing amount of the day-to-day labor on farms is being performed by hired labor as the number of "family farms" declines (Arcury and Quandt 1998). Farmworkers in the United States are frequently poor immigrants from Mexico or other Latin American countries, with limited literacy skills and English proficiency. They are likely to live in lower-income or more isolated areas with inadequate health care facilities, and they seldom have health insurance. They have insufficient economic and social resources to control their environment and maintain their health, and therefore tend to have poorer health status than the general population (Austin 2002; Villarejo 2003). This situation, when combined with the real or perceived lack of control over the workplace, puts them at significantly greater risk than the general population for negative health consequences from pesticide exposure.

Pesticide safety is not a simple matter of more safety education or increasing knowledge of the hazards of farmwork (Arcury and Quandt 1998). Workers and growers have widely differing perceptions of their control over their own work circumstances (Grieshop, Stiles, and Villanueva 1996). When workers feel they do not have control, they are less likely to take workplace safety measures (Arcury, Quandt, and Russell 2002; Austin et al. 2001; Vaughn 1993a, 1993b). Therefore, they must first be convinced of their capacity to implement what they have learned if they are to act to reduce their exposure. Agricultural employers need to be aware of the barriers workers face in trying to work safely and take measures to address these barriers. Optimal workplace safety is most likely to be achieved when there is commitment and a partnership of employees and employer (Arcury et al. 2001; Wallerstein and Rubenstein 1993). This article discusses the beliefs about and attitudes toward pesticides by a group of growers in North Carolina's Christmas tree industry, and the implications of these beliefs and attitudes for worker exposure. Because one role of the cooperative extension service is to educate and support growers in their pesticide safety efforts, this paper also addresses the attitudes and beliefs of cooperative extension agents who work with tree growers. This paper expands the literature on growers' perception of their workers' occupational risks from pesticides (Quandt et al. 1998) and contributes to the overall literature on occupational health risks of immigrant labor.