Educate your producers, a topic on health hazard
Part of the consistent tasks we do on the farm is maintaining our coffee trees, and making sure that the green is healthy for when coffee season starts, we have healthy cherries to pick. With that, comes spraying herbicides and fungicides. There’s so much threat to the crop, that there’s no choice but to keep up with this task twice a month.
This past week, us, the workers have been called to the office to watch a video about handling fungicides or liquid for spraying. It was about 50 minutes in total. In that video, it showed how the liquid may enter your body in ways that can be harmful, protective gear, protocol if something happens, ways to avoid it, and other topics that revolved on how to protect yourself from falling ill by it. At the end, we talked about the system on how to keep track of records, suggestions on what we’re using, and how we can improve our current actions on spraying.
I was stunned by all that information. I was wondering, why do I only know about this now? After 9 months of doing farm work in two farms? Only now??? But at the same time, I was also grateful that someone credible from Department of Agriculture came by to give this presentation & talk.
Before we hold up a fight against any person/company, let me just say that I’ve always been guided in UCC. What to wear, how to protect myself and I’ve been given gear too. My farm manager has done her part and has been compliant with making sure that I’m all set with handling the spray. The only missing part was the detailed “why’s”.
However, I get flashbacks on what it was like in my previous farm as I wasn’t guided at all, because no one was there to properly inform the workers. No one credible! The only protective gear we had that didn’t even protect us was a covid surgical mask, the backpacks weren’t taken care of and that’s why there’d be occasional spills on our backs. We didn’t even use gloves! They’ve provided respirators before I left, which I’ve only used once or twice.
For both farms, I am partly to blame for not asking.
That memory made me realize that heck… freaking hEck. I’m doomed. I’m gonna die early. What if diseases related from the mishandling of spray products catches up on me when I get older? What if my death is not because of triathlon or dying from a crash while traveling for coffee? What if my death will be a slow, painful and pricey death? WhAT IF?!
I am already so worried about the impacts on my health, when I’ve only had improper handling for 2 or 3 months from the first farm, but I also come to realize about other farm workers who have been in the industry for so long, and never knew about this. What about other employers who sneak past & avoid the system, and would keep workers uninformed? That’s what I’m scared of.
In my opinion, if spraying responsibly is a sustainable way to keep a farm running & producing, I am totally fine with it. A farm cannot earn if cherries won’t produce, and a picker earns because of the cherries they pick. However, I also believe that, for us to find balance in keeping the trees healthy, we must also keep our workers healthy and protected. Employers must do their part in that aspect. That’s the trade off.
(Let us not be biased. Workers shouldn’t be hard headed too. Some can be VERY stubborn)
To make sure though that employers have done their full part on their job for the workers, it is always important to include the reasoning behind actions. Never miss out on the “Why”. When we educate our workers this way, it simply means that you care about us & see our health as priority & want us to actually understand.
What’s the solution to this? Maybe upon hiring a farm worker, have him/her learn about the implications of spraying first? Find a way to educate about major health hazards prior to getting them to work in that particular aspect in farming? Or something?? I have no clue. But whatever it takes to have this instilled in our minds, please educate us. Our health is at risk.
It’s the producers who mostly deserve the right to know.
