{"id":27,"date":"2026-11-05T05:21:46","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T05:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/?p=27"},"modified":"2026-11-05T05:21:46","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T05:21:46","slug":"its-not-just-covid-19-farmworkers-face-enormous-health-risks-all-year-long-philsugar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/?p=27","title":{"rendered":"It’s not just COVID-19. Farmworkers face enormous health risks all year long | PhilSugar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soraida Farias has never heard of National Farmworkers Awareness Week, but farm work has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. Her father was a farmworker and like him, she now \u201cworks the grapevines\u201d in California\u2019s Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The grueling work keeps her incredibly busy for more than half the year. In April, the vines are prepared for the season, which goes through December when the table grapes are picked, cleaned, packed, and shipped all over the country.
\nFarias has spent the last 10 years working for one company and in the coming days, she should receive directives from them about what\u2014if anything\u2014will change in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Farmworkers like Farias keep the country fed and they are considered \u201cessential workers,\u201d but working through a pandemic can subject rural agricultural communities to incredible harm, especially when considering that these workers have few legal protections and large gaps in healthcare coverage, if any at all.
\nThis is one example of the conditions that advocates paano makahanap ng sugar daddy<\/a> hope to shine a light on as part of the annual National Farmworkers Awareness Week, which spans March 25-31 and is now in its 21st year. There are
\n2 to 3 million farmworkers
\nin the U.S. and an estimated 900,000 of these workers are women like Farias, who harvest, pick, process, and pack the fruits and vegetables the country relies on each day. But they are some of the most unprotected workers in the country, performing work that
\nconsistently ranks
\nas some of the most dangerous occupations in the U.S.
\n\u201cIn the work that I do, it\u2019s easy to keep distance between us, but it can still be scary. My husband doesn\u2019t want to go to work [during the coronavirus], but he has to,\u201d Farias said. \u201cFor undocumented people, they have no other resources, they have no other way to get money to support their families. I\u2019ve seen it before, people who are sick or hurt go to work because they feel like they have to. They don\u2019t have other options.\u201d
\nThe Earlimart, California, resident is worried about undocumented workers with no other source of income. She told Prism that she has personally seen undocumented workers push themselves through illness and injury out of desperation for the funds that keep their families afloat.
\nThere is little reward for the tremendous risks farmworkers take. The average income for a farmworker is $11,000. Most are exempt from minimum wage laws, and all are exempt from overtime provisions, despite long work days safe sugar baby sites Philippines<\/a> during peak harvest. Farias, who works six days a week during grape season, told Prism she doesn\u2019t receive double pay for working holidays.
\nAs
\nM\u00f3nica Ram\u00edrez reported
\nfor Prism, despite their immense contribution to the economy, \u201cfarmworkers are among the lowest paid workers in the country, they have the fewest employment rights, they work under substandard conditions, and they are essentially invisible to most people in society.\u201d The conditions facing women agricultural workers are especially dangerous, and have far reaching implications for their families.
\n\u201cUnder federal law,
\nchildren can still work in agriculture
\n, with limited restrictions, as young as the age of 12. Women suffer rampant sexual harassment. Adults and children are sprayed with harmful pesticides that result in short-term and long-term health consequences. In particular, pesticide exposure
\ncan cause grave reproductive health issues
\nthat affect farmworkers\u2019 reproductive organs, lead to miscarriages, and cause birth defects,\u201d Ram\u00edrez reported.
\nFrom California to Massachusetts, there are organizations working with agricultural workers to address the overwhelming issues their legit sugar daddy sites Philippines<\/a> communities face. These are groups like
\nNC FIELD
\n, which works directly with migrant and seasonal farmworker youth and families get more sugar baby replies<\/a> to address inequalities and fill service gaps in the agricultural community by referring farmworkers to needed services, conducting educational programs, and teaching farmworker youth grassroots organizing principles through programs like
\nPoder Juvenil Campesino
\n.
\nNC FIELD\u2019s executive director Yesenia Cuello told Prism that children as young as 12 years old work tobacco farms in North Carolina. \u201cWe know for a fact that children in agriculture are not protected under the law and there are very real reasons why pressure may fall on a young person to help support the family,\u201d Cuello said, citing deportation of a parent as a primary reason a child might begin to work the fields. \u201cWe know legally that not much has succeeded as far as legislation to protect these kids, so we try to give them the tools they need to learn to protect themselves.\u201d
\nNorth Carolina is home to more than 100,000 farmworkers who paano pumili ng sugar baby<\/a> work in tobacco, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, Christmas trees, and blueberries, among other crops. According to the
\nNC Farmworkers\u2019 Project
\n, North Carolina\u2019s leading industry is agriculture, yet farmworkers are among the most underserved residents in the state.
\nCuello\u2019s organization has established relationships with community health centers, and based on information the centers report to NC FIELD, the organization creates educational opportunities for agricultural workers. \u201cThis is our way of being able to address occupational health and safety issues that directly impact farm workers,\u201d Cuello said. \u201cFor example, in the summertime heatstrokes are very common. A heatstroke can kill a person, so we have developed education around teaching people how to recognize a heatstroke, how to treat it, and how to prevent one.\u201d
\nPesticides are another major concern for agricultural workers nationwide.
\nAccording to
\nthe nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice, farmworkers have sponsor dating Philippines<\/a> one of the highest rates of chemical exposures among all U.S. workers. Every year, doctors diagnose up to 20,000 poisonings among agricultural workers\u2014and that\u2019s only what\u2019s reported.
\nPesticide exposure
\nposes serious short- and long-term health risks to children and adults. \u201cThe immediate results of
\nacute pesticide poisoning
\ncan include rashes, vomiting, and death. In the long-term, pesticide exposure has been associated with
\nincreased risk of cancer, infertility, neurological real sponsor for sugar baby<\/a> disorders, and respiratory conditions
\n,\u201d
\nEarthjustice reported
\n. These toxic chemicals can also cling to workers\u2019 skin and clothing after they return active sugar dating members Philippines<\/a> home, exposing entire families to the effects.
\nRaul Garcia, the legislative director of Earthjustice\u2019s
\nHealthy Communities initiative
\n, told Prism that the voices and needs of agricultural workers are centered in the organization\u2019s work because there is \u201cnothing quite as powerful\u201d as hearing the experiences of impacted people.
\n\u201cMany people can look at an issue and say something is right or wrong. Exposing people to toxic pesticides is clearly wrong,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cIn court, that might be called \u2018hearsay,\u2019 but there is no hearsay here. The people living with the consequence [of toxic chemicals] are the ones telling us what it\u2019s like and why protections need to be in place.\u201d
\nLast year, an important best sugar dating site for men<\/a> step was made when President Donald Trump
\nsigned into law
\nthe Pesticide Registration Improvement Extension Act (PRIA), which provides the Environmental Protection Agency with more resources to evaluate pesticide registrations and ensure the preservation of the Agricultural Worker Protection Standard (WPS) and the Certification of Pesticide Applicators (CPA) rule that are vital to the protection of workers and consumers who are exposed to pesticides.
\nThis is just a start, of course. If the global pandemic has taught us anything, it\u2019s that nearly every industry in the U.S. is ill-equipped to protect its workers. In industries where protections were already sugar dating fraud Philippines<\/a> severely lacking, the situation is especially dire. As women like Farias gear up for work this season, they are headed into unknown territory. The mother of five\u2019s agricultural season starts around the same time the coronavirus pandemic is expected to reach its peak nationwide. Farias said in the Sacramento area, workers there are already harvesting strawberry crops. She wonders if sick people will force themselves to work and whether the companies they work for will intervene.
\n\u201cI think these companies understand how hard we work and all the problems with the job,\u201d Farias said. \u201cThey just don\u2019t really care about us.\u201d
\nRelated
\nTagged:
\nCOVID-19
\n,
\nNews
\nTina V\u00e1squez
\nTina V\u00e1squez is the features editor at Prism. She covers gender justice, workers' rights, and immigration. Follow her on Twitter @TheTinaVasquez.
\nMore by Tina V\u00e1squez<\/p>\n

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Soraida Farias has never heard of National Farmworkers Awareness Week, but farm work has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. Her father was a farmworker and like him, she now \u201cworks the grapevines\u201d in California\u2019s Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"solace_meta_sidebar":"","solace_meta_container":"","solace_meta_enable_content_width":"","solace_meta_content_width":0,"solace_meta_title_alignment":"","solace_meta_author_avatar":"","solace_post_elements_order":"","solace_meta_disable_header":"","solace_meta_disable_footer":"","solace_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philisharestory.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}