Restore Funding That Protects Farmworkers & Families

Tell Congress To Restore Funding that Protects the Health of Farmers, Farmworkers, and Families

Funding cuts in the current budget bill include drastic cuts in research essential to protect farmers, farmworkers, and their families. There are many federal agencies funding research, but among the most important of those funding research affecting farmers, farmworkers, and their families are the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).  

>> Tell Congress to restore funding that protects the health of farmers, farmworkers, and their families. 

EPA funding for the Bioecological Center for Research on Children's Health (BeRCH) project was cut after almost two years. This project had the potential to address farmworker children's health. Farmworker children can face many challenges--including poverty, language barriers, inadequate housing, discrimination, fear of family separation, exposure to agricultural chemicals, food insecurity, and migration. BeRCH was designed to identify, understand, and address the cumulative impacts on the health, development, and growth of farmworker children. The project goals were to examine farmworker children's exposures to environmental toxins (pesticides, heavy metals, particulate matter) and non-chemical psychosocial stressors (poverty, food insecurity, trauma, discrimination, etc). Working in collaboration with the Florida State University (FSU) health clinic in Immokalee, the project would have examined threats, implemented strategies to improve health outcomes for farmworker children, and collaboratively established a Center in Immokalee to continue the research, outreach, and services to the community.  

The Sentinel Event Notification System for Occupational Risks (SENSOR) is a NIOSH-funded program that monitors pesticide-related incidents of injuries, illnesses, and death. The program is state-based, and so far, 13 states participate, tracking worker pesticide exposure incidents. Tracking and documenting pesticide exposure cases of farmworkers is now severely curtailed, through cuts to the SENSOR pesticide surveillance program—the only national program tracking pesticide-related illnesses and deaths. By providing technical support to state health agencies to train medical professionals on how to diagnose and treat pesticide poisonings, SENSOR strengthens the network of health experts who can help advise farmworkers, pesticide applicators, parents, and others to prevent harm from pesticides. 

Other cuts to NIOSH have led to concern in the farming community. NIOSH established and has funded Centers for Agricultural Safety and Health, which have provided resources for on-farm studies and training since 1990, will lose federal funding this fall. In addition to researching long-term safety and health issues, the NIOSH-funded centers provide assistance directly to farmers in their region. With the highest fatal injury rate among workers--with 18.6 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2022 compared to 3.7 deaths per 100,000 workers across all industries—these cuts put agricultural workers at disproportionate risk. 

The funding cuts hurt agricultural families, who live near agricultural fields, as well as workers. Although 11 of the Centers for Agricultural Safety and Health work on a broad range of agricultural health and safety topics, the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety (NCCRAHS) has a more specific mission—to address the needs of children and families who live and work on farms across the country. The NCCRAHS estimates, “About every three days, a child dies in an agriculture-related incident, and each day, at least 33 children are injured. During the past decade, youth worker fatalities in agriculture have exceeded all other industries combined.” It offers educational materials and training to protect agricultural families. 

Broad, untargeted cuts in federal programs hurt agricultural families. Congress should restore funding for programs that support the agricultural workers—and their families—who produce our food.