New rules from the EPA include a ban on workers under 18 handling toxic pesticides, although children 16 and younger can still legally work in the fields.
GVnayR, Wikimedia Commons
Those who plant, tend, and harvest the food American families put on their tables will now enjoy more of the safety measures that already cover workers in most other jobs. The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that the country's two million agricultural workers will get new protections from toxic pesticide use.
"The same rules that have protected other American workers from dangerous cancer- and birth-defect causing pesticides are finally going to protect farmworkers under the new EPA regulations," said United Farm Workers (UFW) President Arturo Rodriguez. "It's been a long time coming, but it has come today."
The rules, last updated two decades ago, include increased safeguards for whistleblowers, new record-keeping requirements, additional postings of information on hazards and rights, and an age minimum of 18 years for workers that apply pesticides in the fields.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the changes will reduce risks of injury and illness for those working on farms, in forests, greenhouses, and nurseries, which result in sick days, lost wages, and medical bills.
Environmental Protection Agency
Rodriguez called the updated rules "momentous" and a dream realized for the farmworkers who fought for their rights in the days of UFW founder César Chávez, citing Chávez's question, "What good does it do to achieve the blessings of collective bargaining and make economic progress for people when their health is destroyed in the process?"
But while the new prohibition on children under 18 handling pesticides is undoubtedly good news for the country's youngest farmworkers, labor activists argue that many will continue being exposed to another serious health risk: nicotine, from the tobacco fields where plenty of children still work each day.
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