Unveiled - Humboldt Magazine - Humboldt State University

PHOTO THIS PAGE AND FACING PAGE COURTESY OF STEVE STEINBERG
CALIFORNIA’S CENTRAL VALLEY is America’s
salad bar, an agricultural cornucopia where more
than half the nation’s fruits and vegetables are
grown. But behind the glistening produce lies a
story rife with contrasts. It’s one of opportunity
and isolation, abundance and deprivation, healthgiving
nutrition and malady-inducing toxins.
The valley’s farmworkers are mostly Latino, and their
homes are clustered in and around the fields in which they
work. The tight-knit, low-income communities are served
by nearby small markets, banks and schools for the laborers’
children. That proximity to agricultural worksites
places workers in the pesticide hot zone, day and night.
Workers, their families and the industrial chemicals all
share common space, but helping the layperson understand
the connections between pesticides, populations and health
hasn’t happened—until now.
Facing page: Farmworkers harvest crops in Tulare County, Calif. A new study by HSU
professors and students maps pesticide use and its proximity to sensitive facilities
like schools and playgrounds in six California communities.
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