Language, culture, and pesticides: how to protect farmworkers

When she was a graduate student in biocultural anthropology, Amy Snipes, associate professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, was invited to work as an observer in a research project on a farm.

She was immediately drawn to learn more about the farmworkers. This interest led Snipes to spend years doing research as a participant-observer farmworker where she took on the labor of the fields first-hand, and it shaped the course of her career as a researcher.

“A clear hierarchy based on farmworker’s immigration status, English language skills, and indigeneity was immediately visible,” said Snipes. “For example, the darkest skinned workers—mostly indigenous people—performed the most dangerous work, picking up the berries that were left behind by the harvesting machine. I saw hazardous work being distributed in ways that were unjust. I wanted to know more, and I wanted to do something once I began to understand the dynamics at play.”

Snipes’s research focuses on improving the health and well-being of migrant farmworkers in the United States, the majority of whom are Mexican or of Mexican descent. Recently, she has focused her research on protecting workers from pesticide exposure.

Personal Protective Equipment on farms

Every year, between one million and 2.5 million farmworkers are exposed to pesticides. Of those, around 300,000 suffer acute pesticide poisoning. Pesticide exposure can cause symptoms like dizziness, headache, vomiting, and diarrhea, and exposure increases the long-term risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, respiratory diseases, some cancers, and other conditions.

To reduce the risk of pesticide exposure, the United States Occupational Health and Safety Administration mandates personal protective equipment (PPE) for workers who plant, care for, and harvest crops in fields where pesticides are used. Basic PPE for farmworkers includes boots, long pants, and long-sleeved shirts. It can also include eye protection, hats, gloves, and even a respirator, depending on the work that a person performs and their likely level of pesticide exposure.

Despite these rules, some protective equipment is often not worn. Sometimes farm owners do not supply the required PPE to their workers, but this is not the only barrier to PPE use.

Many individual workers are not able to wear the PPE. Migrant farmworkers—who are commonly paid based on how much they harvest—complain that wearing PPE slows down their production: gloves reduce dexterity, sleeves get in the way, clothing traps heat, and glasses fog up. For workers who are paid based on how much they accomplish, the proximal need to earn as much money as possible outweighs the risk of pesticide exposure.

Did Snipes wear her PPE?

Amy Snipes, associate professor of biobehavioral health, worked alongside migrant farmworkers for several seasons. Even though she knows the value of PPE, she admits that she removed her safety glasses sometimes.

“They fogged up and made it hard to work,” said Snipes. “The equipment has to be functional first and foremost, or no one will wear it.”

Author

Aaron
Wagner

Health and the Environment

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What society owes to farmworkers

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 19 out of every 100,000 farmworkers die due to work-related injuries, making farming one of the most dangerous occupations in the nation. In addition to pesticide exposure, farmworkers face a broad array of risks, including heat stress, dehydration, injury, and excessive sun exposure.

Additionally, some employers may take advantage of migrant and seasonal workers who are not English-language proficient or who lack authorized immigration standing, leaving farmworkers at greater risk for exploitation than other workers.

Snipes said that people often take for granted the health and safety of the men and women who grow and harvest the food they eat every day, even though farm work is critical for everyone’s standard of living. Snipes believes that we have moral and ethical obligations to protect the well-being of the farmworkers who likely touch the food we consume each day.

“Sometimes there is a disconnect between healthy food, justice, and the health of food providers,” Snipes explained. “Our food does not come from a restaurant, a kitchen, a warehouse, or a store. Ultimately, our food comes from fields, and we are all reliant on farmworkers to provide it.

“When COVID-19 was new and scary, everyone was ordered to stay home,” she continued, “There were only a handful of jobs that were deemed essential, and those who continued to work did so through danger and fear. Farmworkers were on the list with police, doctors, and a few other jobs. Farmworkers deserve the same level of respect, protection, and access to safe work as other essential workers.”

Benefits of PPE

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is mandated by OSHA to protect against pesticides, but it has other benefits in the fields.

Hat

A brimmed hat protects skin and eyes from excess sun exposure.

Glasses

Glasses protect eyes from machinery, dirt, vegetation, and–potenitally–the sun.

Respirator

Respirators are typically only worn by people applying pesticides. Other face coverings (like a bandana) are more commonly used by other farm workers.

Long Sleeve Shirt

Long sleeves protect skin from sun exposure, abrasion, and cuts.

Gloves

Gloves protect fingers from machinery and other equipment.

Long Pants

Long pants are very common among farm workers. They protect the skin from pests, chemicals, vegetation, and equipment.

Boots

Boots or other solid shoes protect feet from machinery, as well as pesticides.

Keeping workers safe

One way that Snipes and her collaborators are working to keep farmworkers safe is in the development a multi-part intervention to promote the use of PPE among migrant farmworkers. The researchers identified and provided effective PPE that would not impede work. Then, they designed a smartphone app that both promoted the use of PPE and helped the researchers understand reasons people might choose to not wear protective equipment.

To identify practical and functional PPE, the researchers formed focus groups of farmworkers. The groups identified gloves that would not diminish touch sensitivity too severely for someone who was handling delicate crops. They found protective eyewear that did not fog up, selected lightweight shirts with vents to relieve heat, and chose clothing that was slim-fitting and, therefore, not a hazard near heavy machinery.

Once the researchers had identified functional PPE, they developed a smartphone app to encourage farmworkers to wear the PPE. The app was available in English or Spanish and distributed to a group of migrant farmworkers who agreed to participate in the study. In the morning, the app reminded people to wear their PPE. After work, it asked farmworkers if they wore their PPE that day. The app provided tailored messages designed to encourage PPE use on subsequent days based on participants’ responses.

According to Snipes, one important aspect of the app was using meanings that were culturally appropriate for the farmworkers.

“Pesticide exposure causes sneezing and airway inflammation as immediate symptoms,” said Snipes. “The farmworkers refer to this phenomenon as ‘allergias.’ In formal English or Spanish, an allergy is an immune response that is distinct from the body’s reaction to an exposure. But among farmworkers, this response is commonly referred to as an allergy to the pesticides themselves, so that is how we describe it in the app. This is not a misunderstanding on the farmworkers part; they use the word differently.”

The personalized messages sent through the app allowed the researchers to address farmworkers in terms that made them feel comfortable and understood, according to Snipes.

The intervention improved usage rates of PPE, especially eye protection and gloves. Usage rates for long pants, boots, and long-sleeved shirts were already high (above 80 percent). Significantly, the greatest difference in PPE usage was observed among farmworkers who were the least comfortable with English-language communication, either due to their language skills or cultural familiarity. This demonstrated the value of using culturally specific language in the app.

Protecting people from extreme heat

Heat poses one of the many serious dangers that farmworkers face.

As climate change heats the planet, Larry Kenney, professor of kinesiology, is working to identify the safe limits for human beings.

Learn more

Making it personal

When she began this research, Snipes knew that to understand the lived experiences of farmworkers, she needed to experience it, too. She has worked as a farmworker multiple times, once for 18 months straight.

“When I saw the toil of the workers, I wanted to be in the field so that I could understand what was happening,” Snipes said.

Snipes described working on a farm as being—among other adjectives—beautiful, tough, skilled, painful, and humbling.

“One farmworker told me, ‘Amy, my work is very beautiful because my hands feed the world.’ He had so much pride and passion,” Snipes explained. “As a society, we should recognize and celebrate that pride and passion. We should make sure the people who provide food to all of us are protected from pesticides, from exploitation, and from all the dangers that they currently face.”