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Grantee investigation finds that California farmworkers face health hazards amid inconsistent pesticide enforcement

Francisco harvests green tomatoes for pleasure at La Huerta de Cantua Creek, an incubator farm operated by the Central California Environmental Justice Network in Fresno County. Francisco works as a hired farmworker on other farms, where he is exposed to pesticides. At La Huerta, he can use his gardening skills without that hazard. The farm operates as a community garden, and members are able to keep the produce they grow.

The regulatory system designed to protect farmworkers from pesticides is enforced haphazardly across California, according to new reporting by Robert Lopez published in the Los Angeles Times and Capital & Main. With support from the Fund, Lopez obtained 40,000 state enforcement actions for the last five years and found that even when regulators determined that companies endangered workers or committed multiple violations, few were penalized. Lopez also interviewed farmworkers who reported suffering from nausea, burning eyes and irritated throats; many of them told Lopez they did not report serious problems because they feared retaliation or lacked confidence in the regulatory system.