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UC Agricultural Health & Safety Center at Davis

AgHealthNews

Issue Number 1999-04
Fall 1999

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

 

1999-04-01 Table of Contents

1999-04-02 Welcome and Introduction

1999-04-03 Three UC Davis students contribute valuable information to the Farmer Health Study

1999-04-04 Workshops for trainers of pesticide handlers and agricultural fieldworkers

1999-04-05 Great Plains Center coordinator discusses farming hazards and economic changes in Finland

1999-04-06 CHP cracking down on farm labor vehicles

1999-04-07 Colgate University professor appointed new CIRS executive director

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)

Lauren Comeau, a fourth-year pre-med student majoring in biological sciences, has been working on a project investigating mortality in farmers. She has systematically documented which farmers have died since the 1993 study with the intention of compiling statistics about cause of death. Doing so was not always a simple task. Although death records are public information, difficulty is often encountered in determining whether a person named on a death certificate is the same person who participated in the study.

Comeau obtained information in some cases only by calling the families of deceased farmers, a very sensitive task. And she has encountered some surprises.

"I had been prepared for `worst-case scenarios' in case I spoke with difficult people on the phone, but I certainly was not prepared for this one," says Comeau. "I called a farmer on the list and said something like `I understand that Mr. X has passed away, is that correct?' The woman on the other end of the line paused and said, `No, that is not correct; in fact he's standing in front of me right now.' I was surprised. She told her husband that someone thought he was dead, and they started laughing. We chatted for a little bit more, and I told her I was happy to find out that we were mistaken. She said that I wasn't half as happy as she was." After Comeau collects information on cause of death, she compares the death rates of farmers in the study to rates for other occupations.

Although students have only a small sample so far, it's becoming apparent to them that deaths from certain causes occur far more commonly than expected. Comeau's study revealed that diseases of the respiratory system, ischemic heart disease and accidents are leading causes of death.

Tarlan Bananzadeh, a senior majoring in biological sciences, has been looking at farmers who also hold jobs off the farm. She was surprised to learn that as many as 33 percent of the farmers in the study had other careers in addition to their farming practices. Lawyers, physicians, engineers, mechanics and teachers are included in the list of professions undertaken by today's farmers.

"I have to say that I have much greater respect for this occupation, and many of my misconceptions about farmers and farming in general have been erased," says Bananzadeh. "A significant portion of California farmers are more educated than many people would think, and I don't believe that they are recognized for their role in maintaining California's economy. The more I've learned about them, the more I'm inclined to further my study in this area."

Dave Grover is also a fourth-year student and is majoring in neurobiology, physiology and behavior. His research for the Farmer Health Study involves examination of the characteristics of working California farm children. Analysis of this information is important because children working on farms face many of the same occupational hazards faced by adult farmworkers. Children also often face unique health and safety hazards due to their smaller physical size, relative inexperience and lack of occupational regulation. Grover is trying to determine what factors influence the pattern of children working and living on California farms. Approximately 17 percent of the farms in our study involve children age 18 or under living on the farm.

"My interest in working in Dr. Schenker's lab stems from my interest in public health and epidemiology as well as my desire to receive a broad introduction to medical research as an undergraduate," says Grover, who served as a youth member on the board of the National Board of Directors of the National Parent Teacher Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the California State Parent Teacher Student Association. "By working on the Farm Children project, I received invaluable training while working with statistical programs. I learned more about the field of epidemiology and, of course, gained an appreciation for the farmers and farm children in California."

All three of these students learned numerous new skills and gained important knowledge in the course of conducting these research projects, including epidemiologic concepts and terminology, data analysis techniques and use of statistical software. And they seemed to enjoy the challenges.

The students will present their results at the UC Davis Research Conference in the spring of 2000. Their work should be informative to the full-time researchers working on the study.

People training pesticide handlers and/or fieldworkers who work in production agriculture or commercial greenhouses and nurseries must be qualified trainers. To be qualified as a trainer, you can be a licensed pest control adviser, a certified private or commercial pesticide applicator, or have attended an approved train-the-trainer program. University of California farm advisors and biologists working in agricultural commissioners' offices are also qualified trainers.

Patrick O'Connor-Marer, Coordinator of the UC IPM Pesticide Education Program, says that plans are under way to hold workshops in several parts of the state later this year.

The latest information regarding workshops is posted on the UC IPM web site http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/IPMPROJECT/workshops.html. Or, you may call (530)752-5273 for more information and to request registration materials.

Like the United States, Finland has been experiencing a natural decline in farming population due to the evolution from agrarian to industrial to information age. In recent years the European Union (EU) has forced small Finnish producers out of business by promoting global market-oriented agri-cultural production at reduced producer prices.

"Prior to joining the European Union in 1995, Finnish farmers in a collective bargaining process with the government were able to negotiate producer prices for the next year," says Rautiainen, who grew up on a farm in Finland and has a master's degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Helsinki, Finland. "After joining EU, the producer prices dropped sharply."

Another result of Finland's inclusion in the EU is a tremendous increase in the amount of paperwork farmers must complete. Much of the farmers' income is derived from subsidies for which they must submit applications.

"For example, my brother has seven or eight different types of subsidies that he has to apply for every year," says Rautiainen. "Plus he has to have very good bookkeeping on every hectare [equivalent to 2.47 acres] and for every animal on the farm and all supplies, including pesticides. There's a regulation on how much fertilizer he can use on the land, so he has to take samples of manure, calculating the nutrient values in the manure, then matching additional fertilizers. It has become a huge management effort, and small farms are declining because of it."

Approximately 7 to 8 percent of the farming population in Finland claims an injury each year. In 1997, Finland adopted a "no-claims bonus." If the farmer has no injury claims, then he or she can qualify for a lower insurance premium, at a discount of up to 50 percent. "It will be interesting to see if money talks, so to speak," says Rautiainen. "Finland has very good statistics of injuries in thepopulation, so we'll be able to look at very exact changes in the rates or claims for injury."

The most prevalent occupational diseases among Finnish farmers include hypersensitivity pneumonitis, occupational asthma, skin disorders, rhinitis, hearing loss, epicondylitis and tenosynovitis. Insurance claims are underwritten by the Farmers Social Insurance Institution, a public-private insurance institution. "This insurance is mandatory for all farmers," says Rautiainen. "The cost is covered approximately one-third by farmers as insurance premiums, one-third by national health insurance (due to reduced national health insurance usage) and one-third by the state. The cost of the insurance for farmers is below 1 percent of the farmers' calculated annual earnings."

Most hired farmworkers in Finland have traditionally been of Finnish descent, but an increasing number are coming from other ethnic groups. Some specific crops, such as strawberries, that require a significant amount of handwork, are attracting more foreign migrant workers, "but the numbers are in the thousands, not tens of thousands," notes Rautiainen.

In order to enter farming in Finland, basic vocational training in agriculture is required if farmers want to enjoy benefits of the country's pension program and government subsidies. Many farmers obtain a degree equivalent to a bachelor's degree.

"There are a lot of 50-year-old farmers in Finland, but by 60 to 65 years of age, most farmers retire and take advantage of the government-sponsored pension plan. This way, the younger generation can start farming quite a bit earlier," explained Rautiainen. "By contrast, Iowa farmers have to keep farming until they are close to very serious illness or death."

Rautiainen estimates the number of occupational diseases in Finish farming at about 1,000 cases per year and declining. Farmer's Lung, a more serious problem in the recent past, was mainly caused by moldy hay.

"In the 1970s farmers began using a square baler. Since there is rarely a four- or five-day rainless period in Finland the bale could get wet and mold could form," says Rautiainen. "In the last five to 10 years, farmers began using round bales, adding acid to drop the pH to about 4 and wrapping the bale airtight in plastic, which reduced the mold problem."

Another health concern in Finland involves animal containment. Because of the climate, most of the animal production (dairy and swine) takes place indoors. During the summer cattle go out in the fields to graze, but swine production takes place indoors year-'round. "They say it's much more economical to build and heat the building than to feed the pigs what it takes to survive the winter," says Rautiainen. "We see many asthma and rhinitis problems in farmers that are attributed to their work in animal confinements."

Rautiainen is working on his Ph.D. in occupational and environmental health at the University of Iowa. He uses the Finnish agricultural injury and occupational disease data for his dissertation and plans to submit several manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals in the next two years. For more information, he can be contacted by e-mail at risto-rautiainen@uiowa.edu.

Lifting a cover in the back of the empty bus as if he were taking a lid off a crock pot, the inspector in the blue CHP coveralls wrinkled his nose. "This can cause carbon monoxide poisoning," said Ernest Benavides, examining the unsealed hole under a back seat in the bus used daily to transport up to 47 farm laborers to and from Inland Empire fields. Crawling underneath the same bus in the Riverside CHP parking lot, Benavides found another problem: leakage in the exhaust system that allows more deadly gas to seep into the passenger compartment. The inspector found the exhaust problems to be serious enough to put the bus out of service, meaning that the vehicle cannot transport passengers until the problems are fixed.

In the wake of the tragic crash that killed 13 Central Valley farmworkers in August, the inspection was part of the California Highway Patrol's stepped-up efforts to improve the safety of the buses and vans that carry laborers. Following the accident, officers around the state conducted sweeps, making surprise safety inspections and citing violators. The CHP in the Inland Empire followed up by holding a voluntary inspection day, which gave owners the chance to submit to safety checks without fear of punishment, as long as they correct any problems found. Rather than issue a citation for violations, inspectors told the bus owners to fix the trouble and followed with a handshake.

Of the nine buses and vans taken to CHP parking lots in Riverside or San Bernardino, inspectors found enough violations to put four out of service, said Officer Robert L. Velasco. In one van, Riverside inspectors discovered an oil-soaked brake shoe, which impedes the vehicle's ability to stop. They also found that the van lacked a safety strap for its drive shaft. "If it falls, it can disable the vehicle and cause a serious accident," said Officer James Fonseca. Inspectors deemed the van so dangerous, they wouldn't let it be driven away. The driver could have it towed back to the company's yard, or call for a mechanic to fix it on the spot, inspectors said. The driver opted for the latter. The bus with the carbon monoxide problem was allowed to be driven away for repairs because the fume seepage was in the rear, far from the driver.

"We like these inspections, even if we have little problems. It's safer for everybody," said Octavio Cardenas, owner of the offending bus, as well as a former school bus a few yards away that was given a clean bill of health. "We're going back to the shop and fix everything right now."

Inspectors explained that mechanical problems can cause accidents outright or exacerbate injuries when there is a collision. Though state law requires inspections of farmworker transport vehicles every 13 months, the heavily used ones can still fall out of compliance in the interim. The van that collided with a tractor-trailer in a rural part of Fresno County on Aug. 9 had been inspected since. The wreckage showed that the farmworkers had been sitting on unbolted benches and not wearing seat belts. The driver was unlicensed. As jobs go, farm work is among the most deadly because of the transportation hazards, experts say. In California, farmworkers are four times more likely to die from a work-related accident or injury than employees of other occupations, said Dr. Marc Schenker, director of the UC Agricultural Health and Safety Center at Davis. "The majority are motor vehicle-related," he said.

This article first appeared in the Sunday, Aug. 22, 1999, edition of the Los Angeles Times.

Lighthall, who grew up on a farm in the northwestern Iowa town of Lawton just east of Sioux City, has firsthand knowledge of the dangers of farming as a survivor of a near fatality involving farm equipment during his childhood. After receiving his bachelor's degree in history and secondary education from the University of Iowa, he taught for five years at Central Community High School in DeWitt, Iowa. When he was laid off in 1982 due to lack of funds during the farm crisis in his school community, Lighthall returned to the University of Iowa where he received master's and Ph.D. degrees in geography, conducting his master's thesis fieldwork in Hyderabad, India.

"In Hyderabad, I was looking at the water quality problems and potential interrelationships to the chemical industry," said Lighthall. "Also there was a social justice dimension, because many of the harmful manifestations of water contamination and water shortage were visited upon the poor population in the area."

In 1992, Lighthall was ap-pointed an assistant professor of geography at Colgate University, where he taught until he accepted the position as executive director of CIRS. He's impressed by the collective expertise among investigators with CIRS and the Ag Health & Safety Center. One of the strengths Lighthall brings to the Ag Health & Safety Center is his understanding of the structure and regulation of agriculture, which is qualitatively different from the regulation of the industrial sector.

"Many of the problems we see in agriculture, whether environ-mental, resource utilization, or health and safety problems, almost always can be traced back to the difficulty of agricultural producers to pass on additional costs because of their position in the commodity chain," said Lighthall. "Food retailers and food processors, for example, have a much easier time passing on costs to consumers, but it's not easy for producers to do that. We ask, `why do we have ag health and safety problems?' It's because there has always been fierce and relatively well-organized resistance on the part of the farmer and grower community to absorb costs that they have a difficult time passing on."

Understanding the issues and regulations, and working cooperatively with farmers and growers, are pivotal in resolving some of the health and safety issues facing farmworkers and their families. Researchers at CIRS are currently conducting a major health and occupational safety survey funded by the California Endowment. Investigators are interviewing 800-900 California farmworkers, analyzing their access to the health care system and their utilization of the health care system, as well as exploring occupational safety and health issues workers face.

"Dr. Stephen McCurdy is one of our co-investigators, and he will be very much involved in analyzing this data. This research will provide us with the capacity for more intelligent questions," said Lighthall. "I look forward to collaborating with Dr. McCurdy, Dr. Marc Schenker and other researchers in the Ag Health & Safety Center."

For more information about the California Institute for Rural Studies, visit www.cirsinc.org on the Web. David Lighthall, executive director of CIRS, can be reached at (530) 756-6555, ext. 11, or by e-mail at dlighthall@cirsinc.org.

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