For immediate release: May 13, 2011

CONTACTS: Jeannie Economos, Farmworker Association of Florida, 407-886-5151 Tracey Brieger, Californians for Pesticide Reform, 415-215-5473 Teresa DeAnda, El Comité para el Bienestar de Earlimart, 661-304-4080

NEWS RELEASE

Pesticide Companies Threaten the Health

of Rural Communities

Farmworker and rural Latino/a organizations submit preliminary analysis to US EPA on injustices caused by Arysta LifeScience’s cancer-causing methyl iodide

EARLIMART, CA; APOPKA, FL— As the US EPA’s comment period on strawberry pesticide methyl iodide closes, over 40 farmworker, Latino, and environmental justice organizations have submitted comments calling for common sense rules on the use of toxic pesticides that embody environmental justice, not undue corporate influence. With farmworkers and low-income rural communities of color on the frontlines of exposure to methyl iodide – a known carcinogen and neurotoxin – and the hundreds of millions of pounds of other hazardous pesticides used every year across the country, the organizations call on EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to protect their communities by banning methyl iodide.

      “It’s farmworkers like me who become sick,” said Jose Hidalgo, a California farmworker. “As a strawberry picker, I have worked near many pesticide applications. First we smell the pesticides. Then our eyes burn, our noses run and our throats hurt.  I’m against using methyl iodide because it’s already too dangerous in the fields, we don’t need new, even more dangerous, toxins.”

Environmental justice organizations and allies working across the country for green, fair and safe economic development and social policy urge the EPA in their letter to suspend and cancel all registrations of methyl iodide in the United States, noting that the science on methyl iodide’s extreme toxicity is clear and indisputable. Methyl iodide causes cancer, late term miscarriages and is a water contaminant.

      “Farmworkers work very hard to put food on our tables and they deserve a healthy working environment. When farmworkers are exposed to toxic pesticides that can cause cancer and other illnesses, they are bearing the brunt of a dysfunctional agricultural system that prioritizes the interests of corporations over human health and the environment,” said Lariza Garzon of the National Farm Worker Ministry. “We urge the EPA to cancel the use of methyl iodide in the fields of our country to protect the health of our farm workers, their families and other members of their communities.  Our national food security depends on the health of the workers that pick our food. We hope that the EPA will do the right thing.”

      The organizations are also submitting a short report analyzing the environmental justice implications and questions related to the use of this chemical, manufactured by Arysta Lifescience, the largest privately held agrochemical company in the world.

      “Methyl iodide will boost Arysta’s $1.2 billion in annual revenues while farmworker families who make less than $15,000 a year and have no health care coverage will suffer the consequences. Will Arysta be there to help when our communities get cancer and we lose our babies?” asked Teresa DeAnda, President of El Comité para el Bienestar de Earlimart, a community group in rural California. “Methyl iodide is all risk for us and all benefit for Arysta.”

      This preliminary analysis, based on personal interviews and scenarios that use methyl bromide use as a proxy for methyl iodide use, points to the likelihood that rural communities, and lower–income Latino/a rural communities and farmworkers in particular, will face highest exposures to this chemical. Recent research confirms that farmworker communities already face health harms from exposure to pesticides, as documented in a recent study published in Environmental Health Perspectives last month showing lower IQs among children who whose mothers were exposed to certain pesticides while they were still in the womb.[1]

      “EPA says that they’re committed to environmental justice. A crucial step in the Agency’s commitment to farmworkers is for Lisa Jackson to cancel methyl iodide immediately,” said Virginia Ruiz, Senior Attorney at Farmworker Justice. “We expect EPA to take strong steps to protect farmworker communities from methyl iodide and all other pesticides.”

      “We talk to farmworkers every day. We know and hear their stories about the realities the people face when working in the fields producing the food we all eat. The best regulations in the world on paper don’t match the actual conditions that workers face when they are applying or working around toxic pesticides on the farms. They put their lives at risk to earn a day’s pay and to feed our country. Too often they feel voiceless and invisible,” stated Jeannie Economos of the Farmworker Association of Florida. “By sending this letter to EPA, we raise up their voices and seek environmental justice for the hardworking men and women who want safe and secure lives for themselves and their children. Ultimately, they are speaking for us all.”

For more information about methyl iodide, see http://www.panna.org/cancer-free-strawberries.

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Available for interviews:

Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator, Farmworker Association of Florida, (407) 886-5151, farmworkerassoc@aol.com.

Michael Marsh, Attorney, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., 831-757-5221 x 303, mmarsh@crla.org.