Unveiled - Humboldt Magazine - Humboldt State University

A NEW STUDY BY two Humboldt State professors and their
students offers ways to literally look at the problems – and
some approaches for addressing them. “People, Places and
Health: A Sociospatial Perspective of Agricultural Workers
and their Environment” is the work of Professors Sheila
Lakshmi Steinberg and Steven J. Steinberg. Funded by the
California Endowment, it maps pesticide use and its proximity
to sensitive facilities like schools and playgrounds in six
California communities.
Sheila Steinberg, a sociology professor, is director of
community research for HSU’s California Center for Rural
Policy. Steve Steinberg, a professor in the Natural Resource
Planning program, is director of the Institute for Spatial
Analysis. To map pesticide use and dispersal, the husbandwife
team fused her expertise in sociological field research
with his acumen in geographic information systems (GIS).
The resulting study has jumpstarted change on the ground
where the chemicals are sprayed.
Real people, real maladies
TULARE AND MONTEREY COUNTIES are the secondand
fourth-biggest agricultural counties in California,
together accounting for $7 billion in agricultural value in
2005. The counties employ a proportionate share of the state’s
nearly 900,000 farmworkers and absorb a like proportion
of pesticides – with nearly 200 million pounds applied in
the year 2000.
Health risks associated with pesticide exposure are known
but not well understood. Health anomalies can include flulike
illness, nervous disorders and cancer, with lingering
suspicion that pesticides may be a factor. When spraying
occurs, notification by local authorities is discretionary and
inconsistent. And that lack of communication goes both
ways. Cultural isolation fosters a sense of detachment among
farmworkers from the processes intended to protect them.
Like any other people, work, family and hope for the
future consume the daily lives of California farmworkers.
“These families are really interested in the education of their
children,” says Alma Martinez, a reporter with Fresno-based
Radio Bilingue. “They come to this country and what they
want is their children to do better than they did, to advance
academically and have a career.”
PHOTOS COURTESY OF STEVE STEINBERG
Digital divide
JUST WHAT CHEMICALS ARE applied where The numbers
available through the state’s Department of Pesticide
Regulation (DPR) aren’t all that helpful. “There’s a huge digital
divide,” says Sheila. “They say it’s ‘public data,’ but the average
person would have a hard time getting access to it.”
It’s not for lack of organization. Advocacy groups are active
in the region, and communication lines are well established
between activists and laborers. In fact, the Steinbergs chose
16
HUMBOLDT MAGAZINE | FALL 2009