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UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at Davis

AgHealthNews

Issue Number 1998-04
Fall 1998

Published by the UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at Davis, University of California, Davis, Marc Schenker, M.D., M.P.H., Director, Produced by EditPros, Davis, CA

 

1998-04-01 Table of Contents

1998-04-02 Welcome and Introduction

1998-04-03 Regional Conference: Working together to reduce farm injuries

1998-04-04 Center Investigators meet with Farm Advisors

1998-04-05 Conference participants enjoy combines, bovines and fine wines

1998-04-06 Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada health & safety issues

AgHealthNews is an electronic version of the Center's quarterly newsletter. The Center has two electronic list servers that allow automatic forwarding of e-mail to a list of subscribers. One server is a forum for announcements and discussion of agricultural health and safety issues and the other is a vehicle for the automatic distribution of the Center's quarterly newsletter.

The e-mail addresses for the forum is: aghealth@epm.ucdavis.edu (message forwarding address) and aghealth-request@epm.ucdavis.edu (subscriber request address). The addresses for the newsletter are: aghealthnews@oem.ucdavis.edu (message forwarding address) and aghealthnews-request@oem.ucdavis.edu (subscriber request address).

To subscribe to a list, send an e-mail message to the request address with no subject and a one line message giving the option subscribe and your name. For example, to subscribe to the forum for announcements and general agricultural health and safety issues, you would send the following: To: aghealth-request@epm.ucdavis.edu Subject: Message: subscribe (your name here)

By return e-mail you will receive confirmation of your request and more information about using the list server request functions.

To subscribe to the On-line News, your request would look like: To: aghealthnews-request@oem.ucdavis.edu Subject: Message: subscribe (your name here)

Everyone must work together to reduce the risks that make farming one of the nation's most hazardous occupations, agreed speakers at a three-day conference sponsored by the UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at Davis. Health and safety experts must join forces with growers, legislators, farm labor contractors, farmworkers, physicians, pesticide manufacturers and educators, researchers and the individual communities, said Marc Schenker, M.D., director of the Center, which serves California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii. The conference, titled "Health and Safety in Western Agriculture: Building Bridges," drew more than 100 participants from throughout the United States.

"Every year some 700 people die from accidents on the nation's farms, while another 150,000 suffer disabling injuries. Of the fatalities, more than 100 are children," explained Schenker. "The real focus must be on preventability."

Nationwide, the agricultural industry employs more than 3.4 million, including owners and growers, full-time farm workers, and migrant and seasonal workers. Of the 700,000 hired farmworkers in California, 95 per- cent are foreign-born.

"California has a very high turnover rate--one out of five hired farm-workers is working in the United States for the first time," said Don Villarejo, director of the California Institute for Rural Studies, during a session highlighting safety issues in the Western Region.

Rupert Sandoval, coordinator of the Arizona Interagency Farmworkers Coalition, shares many of the same concerns as Villarejo. Migrant housing is sorely lacking in Arizona, as it is in California, he said. Many single, young Mexican males sleep in fields and ditches and under buses and porches.

Villarejo advocated forming a private watchdog group to monitor conditions. "We need to promote housing for migrant workers, especially young men," he said. He also called upon private organizations to help "build the bridges."

Marc Schenker described the challenges that the UC Davis Agricultural Health and Safety Center faces as enormous. "We have one of the most diverse agricultural regions in the world," he said. "It is diverse in its geography, climate, type of agricultural products, ethnicity of farmworkers, and health and safety concerns." Noting that "industry conditions and hazards continue to change in agriculture," Schenker recommended more focus on "the three E's: education, engineering and enforcement."

"Education by itself is not going to change everything," he said. "Understanding the bilingual and bicultural population that comprises the majority of California's farmworkers is crucial," Schenker stressed. "We need to pay attention to the cultural sensitivities and methods." For example, with Southeast Asian farmers, "we don't speak their language, let alone understand their culture."

Mistrust is also a factor in agricultural health and safety, said Eric Faisst of the Gila River Indian Community Environmental Health Program in Sacaton, Arizona. During his talk titled "Agricultural Health and Safety Challenges in the Gila River Indian Community," Faisst explained how the Akimel O'Athjom (river people), whom the white men call "Pima Indians," do not trust the white man who stole their land and broke their treaties.

"The Akimel O'Athjom believe that the white man is the enemy," Faisst said. "To succeed, our programs must be community-supported and driven. We like to do everything the Pima way--not the white man's way."

Desmond Jolly, director of the Small Farms Center at UC Davis, discussed the misuses and abuse of chemicals in the non-native populations and called for more pesticide safety education among the Southeast Asian farmers--the Hmong, Cambodians, Laotians and Miens. He advocated a train-the-trainer program, with farmers from the individual ethnic groups training others farmers.

The Center's collaborative ergonomics efforts have resulted in many valuable (and often simple) changes in tasks performed by workers in the citrus, nursery and grape growing industries. John Miles of the UC Davis Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department said ergonomics engineering can help reduce some ag health and safety problems. He showed two devices designed to reduce back pain. One, for grape harvesters, was a lift-out container cradled in an invention resembling a red wagon. The container holds 50 pounds of grapes instead of the standard 60. Another invention, for those who work in plant nurseries, features a handle-like "lifter" device that fits under the lip of potted plants, for ease in transporting from one site to another.

During a session focusing on children's health and safety, Barbara Lee of the Children's Center for Rural Health and Safety, National Farm Center, in Marshfield, Wis., criticized the nation's farm conditions that annually injure more than 22,000 children and result in more than 100 deaths. "One-third of those injured are bystanders," said Lee. "All children deserve equal protection, and adults have an obligation to protect children. Kids should not be held accountable for their injuries." Farm parents, she said, must give their children tasks that are age and developmentally appropriate, and then only in very guarded, pre-planned situations.

Greg Kullman, project officer for the NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) Agricultural Centers Program, said, "Conferences such as this help to build collaborative relationships to target prevention of disease and injury in agriculture. Center programs should have a strong focus on prevention, and regional agricultural communities must be participants in the Center's programs.

"Building bridges takes people," Kullman said. "Without them, we cannot build any bridges at all."

Center investigators met with farm advisors on Sept. 16, to discuss ways in which the two groups might interact to identify hazards in agriculture and work together to improve and protect the health and safety of farmers, farmworkers and their families.

"As we develop new prevention tools, I see the farm advisor network as a valuable means of disseminating this new information to the farmers and farmworkers," said Marc Schenker, Center director. "It's exciting because this more comprehensive network would overlay a system that's already in place."

Schenker asked participants to identify services to amplify the value of the Center. Advisors agreed that the challenges confronting them include communicating with the large population of Southeast Asian farmers and others who don't speak English. Although the Center has developed some print materials for various non-English speaking populations addressing pesticide dangers, much more is needed to publicize other health and safety issues.

"I think the real strength of the Center is in its ability to innovate, to develop materials, to address issues," said Schenker. "Being based at the university, we have the resources to identify problems and come up with solutions."

He explained that while the Center provides health and safety expertise with its epidemiologists, toxicologists and agricultural engineers, their functions could be enhanced through participation of farm advisors in identifying problems unique to the various commodities.

"The assessment is a two-way street," replied Dan Markham, a farm advisor in the Shasta-Trinity office of UC Cooperative Extension. "We're happy to come talk to you, but we'd also like you to come down and visit our turf."

Henry Buckwalter, a registration specialist for Uniroyal Chemical Co. and chair of the Center's Internal Advisory Committee, identified injuries involving machinery and vehicles, followed by back injuries, as the highest proportionately among those reported. He said, "If you look at the top five injuries and illnesses in agriculture during the past 10 years, pesticides account for only 3 percent."

Although safety is a component of their job, farm advisors admitted that they're rarely called upon for safety information. "I think the main reason we're not confronted is because growers have other sources of information, such as insurance companies. They'll actually send someone out to the site of the injury," said Rachel Long, a farm advisor for Yolo County.

Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor Mark Freeman of Fresno, said that advisors are working on several projects in which they draw information from several UC resources. "Today you've made me better aware of your organization," he said. "I have a citrus project that is just being funded, and I know that John Miles has done some work in that area. But in my naiveté, I don't know what you guys are doing with citrus harvest. I think if you would make us better aware of what you're doing, we could find a way to work together."

Mike Henry, a farm advisor for Sutter-Yuba counties, asked if the Center would consider looking at issues concerning parks and golf courses with respect to pesticides and other hazards.

Schenker replied, "The main focus of our funding is worker health and safety in agriculture; however, it doesn't preclude us from looking at other public safety issues. We're doing things with children's safety and that's not really farmworker safety, so we don't draw a hard line there, and I wouldn't draw a hard line with what you described."

Steve Scardaci, a farm advisor from Colusa, asked about programs for people with disabilities in agriculture. Schenker explained that among the eight regional NIOSH-funded agricultural health and safety centers, issues such as farmers with disabilities are already being addressed. For example, the Iowa Center has a well-established program focusing on farmers with disabilities that readily responds to queries for information from the public or from researchers in other institutions.

"The Center is a networking place and a funding place, and we want to find out what interests you," said Barry Wilson, Center investigator and UC Davis professor of avian science. "Golf Courses? As an animal scientist, yes, I'm interested in that, and there are other folks around here who would be interested as well. Each of us plays two roles: one is a Center investigator and the other is a person who has an area of expertise within the university that's at your disposal because we are one university."

Schenker summarized the steps the Center will take to begin a cooperative relationship with farm advisors. The Center will

Center, such as its e-mail listserver, quarterly newsletter and Web site. "I'd like to hear from you about issues you would like to see in the newsletter. I'd also like to hear from you about issues you feel the Center should be addressing," said Schenker. "If you have ideas, get in touch with us." Advisors and investigators agreed that in order to reach the majority of UC Cooperative Farm Advisors, a meeting of Ag Center representatives and Farm Advisors could be scheduled around the DANR Statewide Conference, to be held in Sacramento in February.

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

Western Regional Conference participants experienced "combines, bovines and fine wines" when they toured three Yolo County attractions: the Heidrick Ag History Center Museum, the Yolo Land and Cattle Co. and the R.H. Phillips winery. On Sunday, Sept. 13, participants toured the Heidrick Ag History Center in Woodland. The 130,000-square-foot building houses the Fred C. Heidrick Antique Ag Collection, considered the world's largest collection of antique agricultural equipment, and the Hays Antique Truck Museum, also recognized as the largest of its kind in the world. "Celebrity trucks" included a 1921 Relay truck and a 1942 Mack fire truck, both of which appeared in the movie James and the Giant Peach. The conference tour continued Monday afternoon, when Patrick O'Connor-Marer, Center associate director and a Winters prune farmer, led a bus tour of Yolo County farmland, with stops at the Yolo Land and Cattle Co., a 7,500-acre spread near Winters, and the R.H. Phillips Winery in Esparto.

Scott Stone, cattle ranch co-owner, said his family raises 600 head of Angus cattle, while trying to preserve the natural beauty and wildlife on the ranch. The Stones share the spread with bears, mountain lions, deer, coyotes, bobcats, foxes, eagles and other wildlife. The last stop: the family-owned R.H. Phillips Winery, nestled in the hills of Esparto, where conference participants dined on prime rib and tasted R.H. Phillips' wines.

However, these Western Region states share many common agricultural health and safety concerns. All four states are characterized by a high input of manual labor, involving specialized work activities and unique occupational hazards. Arizona, California and Hawaii have very large numbers of migrant and seasonal workers, so barriers relating to language, culture and education are commonplace and necessitate innovative health and safety training methodologies and materials.

During the Center's September conference titled "Health & Safety in Western Agriculture: Building Bridges," Stephen Olenchock, NIOSH's senior scientist for agricultural research, explained the mission of the regional agricultural health and safety centers, of which UC Davis and the University of Iowa were the first, established in 1990. He said, "The centers' programs are designed to recognize differences in population, production techniques, commodities and workforce in agriculture throughout the United States. For this reason, we have eight regional centers distributed throughout the United States with expertise, education, prevention and intervention programs." Olenchock concluded, "This conference provides us an opportunity to share awareness of the latest accomplishments, research activities and findings in agricultural health and safety in the Western Region."

Delegates from each state represented by the Western Region gave overviews of their state's health and safety issues. They include:

ARIZONA
Rupert Sandoval, coordinator for the Arizona Interagency Farm-worker Coalition in Phoenix, reported that while Arizona has no mandated safety policies, the state has established some safety precautions such as those governing pesticides through the Workers Compensation program. "There are no programs in place for other safety issues such as back, eye and skin injuries," said Sandoval. "Male farmworkers don't go in for medical treatment until they're half dead."

Educating farmworkers is key to their health and safety, Sandoval declared. For example, even though farmworkers are repeatedly told "not to wash their hands in irrigation ditches, which often contain pesticides and fertilizers, they still do." Many also wear their pesticide-exposed clothes without washing them.

Deploring the lack of housing, Sandoval said that many seasonal workers "live under bridges, in shacks, in chicken coops, in ditches and in orange groves." Others live in substandard and unsafe housing, with no running water or electricity, and pay $300-400 per month in rent. "Most of the money goes into the pocket of whoever is renting to them, not to the owner," he said.

CALIFORNIA
Don Villarejo, director of the California Institute for Rural Studies, represented California. "Although California probably has one of the strongest ag safety programs in the nation, very few workers are informed about the programs available," said Villarejo. "Most of the enforcement efforts are too tentative, have too few resources and tend to look the other way. Housing is unavailable and needs to be addressed."

Contrary to popular belief, the bearing acreage of trees and vines continues to increase in California. "Most Californians believe just the opposite--that the farm acreage is shrinking," observed Villarejo. He said that the types of commodities have changed over the years, adding to the mixture more labor-intensive crops such as strawberries and specialty lettuce crops.

"California has twice as many hired farmworkers as it does people working in the motion picture industry," declared Villarejo. "Last year farms brought in nearly $27 billion in cash receipts. That's about three times bigger than the worldwide box office receipts of the motion picture industry, but despite all of the improvements, all of the educational outreach, and the enforcement efforts that are available, we haven't made a lot of progress."

HAWAII
Due to the recent economic instability in Asia, the economy in Hawaii is lagging, thus placing agricultural health and safety issues at the bottom of the list of priorities. Bill Dendle, former member of the Hawaii Department of Health in Honolulu, is concerned but not particularly surprised, due to the history of the political atmosphere in the state.

He explained, "In the mid 1980s they chopped off the tops of the pineapple plant, ground it up and fed it to our dairy cows. Pesticides ended up in our milk supply. Just prior to that, the government issued a statement to the people that the milk was absolutely safe. Two days later, all of the dairy products were pulled from the shelves. This awakened a lot of anxiety. Following instantly on the heels of that was the discovery of chemicals in our drinking water. The chemicals came from agriculture use. Those findings really cracked the foundation of agriculture and its relationship to the rest of society."

Hawaii has a growing number of immigrants from Southeast Asia, Micronesia and Korea, bringing with them their culture, their crops and their farming practices. According to Dendle, most don't know English and aren't particularly concerned about the chemicals they use, as long as they work for them. Dendle acknowledges an urgency in educating these groups of people for their own safety as well as the safety of consumers.

"We need to teach them how to play by the rules, including the safe use of chemicals. I welcome the work you're doing in California," concluded Dendle, who introduced Loren Gautz from the University of Hawaii Department of Biosystem Engineering in Honolulu as the "point of reference" for ag health and safety issues in Hawaii.

NEVADA
"When you think about Nevada, you probably don't think about agriculture," observed Ron Pardini, health and safety representative from the University of Nevada, Reno, Biochemistry Department. "Nevada's total land mass is 70.3 million acres, of which 87 percent is public land--the largest public land proportion of any state in the United States. Only 13 percent of our land is private."

Nevada has fewer problems in agricultural health and safety than most states; however, some of the issues include all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), tractor PTOs, farmer's lung disease and Hanta Virus Infection.

"Out of 154 cases of Hanta Virus Pulmonary Syndrome in 26 states, seven occurred in Nevada," reported Pardini. Some of Nevada's safety programs include an equine safety program and a pesticide use program. "In summary, we rely heavily on collaboration with other areas," concluded Pardini.

In closing, Jean Cox-Ganser, a project officer for NIOSH, summarized the regional discussions, encouraging more interaction among representatives from states in the Western Region.

"It's important to understand the problems and ask the right questions so that you can design solutions," said Cox-Ganser. "I can see how you all can help each other on working with migrant and seasonal workers and to impress upon government the important issues. You must form links among yourselves and talk to one another to help each other with the issues at hand."

The Davis Center is resolved to help perpetuate this new regional forum through which the four participating states can work together to confront the Western Region's health and safety concerns.

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