by Esther SchraderSince NAFTA, Mexican growers are spraying more toxic pesticides on fruits, vegetables - and workers
n a single scorched block in Villa Juarez, Sinaloa,
Mexico, four young men have leukemia. Another died of the disease last spring.
The cluster of sickness may have nothing to do with
the tons of toxic pesticides that flow into every water source available
to the residents of this small farm town; it may be unrelated to the four
nearby airstrips where farmers load planes with pesticides to spray over
the surrounding fields; it may not be linked to the work that brings young
men home soaked to the skin with the chemicals they apply to crops.But while there has been no comprehensive study of the
tragedy, you can search far and wide and not find a single doctor who thinks
it is anything but the pesticides that are making the young men of this
flat, hot valley sick."There is no one who works in this clinic who doesn't
believe the leukemia is related to the agrochemicals," says Dr. Sonia
Leon, an emergency room physician at the government hospital in Villa Juarez.
During the growing season, the clinic treats between 50 and 80 cases of
pesticide poisoning a week. "When I go home every night, I run away
from here as fast as I can," Leon says. "But what of the people
who live here? They look up, and the chemicals drift down from the planes
into their eyes. They walk to the fields, and they are dusted with chemicals
from the leaves. They are surrounded; they have nowhere to run."In the Culiacan Valley of Sinaloa, it is normal for
3,000 field workers a year to be hospitalized from what is called pesticide
intoxication - the racing heartbeat, loss of consciousness, pounding headache,
high temperature, nausea, and burning skin that come from overexposure to
pesticides. Throughout Mexico's agricultural belt it is common for children
to break out with skin rashes that doctors cannot explain. It is considered
inevitable to die young from a combination of malnutrition, inadequate living
conditions and chemical inhalation.On the unnamed street in Villa Juarez where leukemia
is the rule, Ubaldina Soto, 35, rocks back and forth on a porch chair. She
clutches a photograph of her son, dead this March of the insidious cancer
at the age of 16."They say it's pesticides that killed him. How
should I know?" Soto asks. "I'm just a mother. I want them to
investigate, to clear this place of contamination so this doesn't happen
to anyone else. A parent shouldn't live to see her children die."The death of Adrian Allesquita Soto, who worked in the
fields on weekends during the school year, is well known to the doctors
of Villa Juarez, and so is the intolerable level of pesticide-laced filth
that pervades the town. In a September 1993 analysis by a local human rights
group of 100 water samples from the drainage canals that meet in Villa Juarez,
95 percent tested positive for 10 organophosphate compounds and 3 organochlorines.
Of the 13 compounds, only 4 are permitted for use in Mexico today.It has been this way for generations in the fruit- and
vegetable-growing regions of Mexico. Growers slather their farmland with
chemicals to increase production of the tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers,
melons, and other crops that make up close to half of the fresh vegetables
sold in the United States during winter. The indiscriminate use of pesticides
in Mexico stretches from the tomato fields of Sinaloa to the tobacco plantations
of Nayarit, where Huichole Indians are dying at alarming rates (see sidebar,
below).Since the danger of Mexican pesticide abuse first received
widespread attention a decade or so ago, improved practices by Mexican growers
have cut the danger to U.S. consumers of ingesting significant amounts of
agrochemicals. Paradoxically, the very steps taken to prevent harm to the
U.S. consumer have upped the danger to Mexican field workers. Growers now
use fast-decaying organophosphate compounds that leave less residue on produce
but are potentially lethal to field workers.Government officials promised - and environmentalists
hoped - that the North American Free Trade Agreement (in effect since Jan.
1, 1994) would reduce the level of pesticides coating Mexico's fields, but
so far this hasn't occurred. In fact, the competition that NAFTA has set
off between growers may actually increase the amount of pesticides used
on Mexican crops.Responsibility for pesticide use lies not only with
Mexican growers but also with their U.S. agribusiness partners. A Mother
Jones investigation shows that these companies, which supply capital to
more than 40 percent of large-scale agribusiness in Mexico, distribute produce
that has been sprayed with pesticides not permitted in the United States.
Even when Mexican growers limit the use of pesticides to those allowed in
the United States, they look the other way as workers apply chemicals without
the basic protective gear and precautions mandated around the world.
he Culiacan Valley produced much of the $3 billion's
worth of produce exported from Mexico to the United States last year. Since
1988, when Mexico began to open its markets to foreign investment, business
in the valley has skyrocketed. About 250,000 acres of vegetables are farmed
today, more than five times as many as 10 years ago.Ninety percent of this acreage is in the hands of large-scale
producers, wealthy men who drive Chevy Suburbans equipped with car phones.
The valley stretches from the Gulf of California east to the Sierra Madre
Occidental Mountains, and its roads and highways are lined with packing
plants painted with familiar American brand names such as Dole.Between December and May, 250,000 workers spray and
harvest endless rows of plants, as planes loaded with pesticides zoom low
overhead. Most of the workers are Mixtec Indians from Oaxaca, an impoverished
state on Mexico's southern edge. Many live in huge migrant farm camps built
by growers - long rows of corrugated tin shacks that roast the workers in
the valley heat.Others, not so lucky, camp out in the fields, bathing
and washing in the drainage canals that flow by, the water tinted a sickly
chemical yellow. At night, the disease-ridden camps are suffused with the
strangely sweet scent of pesticides. In the fields, the fumes can be overpowering.Ever since U.S. growers realized they could capitalize
on Mexico's winter warmth to grow fruits and vegetables when U.S. farmland
lies fallow, they have been a powerful political force in agricultural valleys
such as Culiacan. Until 1992, Mexican law prohibited foreign ownership of
land, so U.S. agribusiness created a complex system that allowed it to own
Mexican produce. Under a typical arrangement, a U.S. grower, distributor
or supermarket chain forms a legal partnership with a Mexican grower and
provides the capital, seedlings, and technology to cultivate crops. The
grower provides the land and the field workers. Often the contract specifies
the pesticides sanctioned by the U.S. partner and lays out the safety measures
necessary to use them.In practice, the selection and use of pesticides is
usually left to the Mexican partner, who is under keen pressure to produce
fruits and vegetables of carefully regulated size, color, and shape. Committed
to hitting the market at exactly the time when their U.S. counterparts cannot,
Mexican growers feel compelled to use agrochemicals to control the growth
cycles of their crops."In Culiacan sometimes they'll spray tomatoes 25
times before they're picked," says Robert Paarlberg, professor of political
science at Wellesley College and an expert on agriculture in developing
countries. He is concerned that the number of acres that are over-sprayed
will rise with free trade, as more U.S. growers compete in the Mexican market.
"The big distributors are down there now trying to convince Mexican
supermarkets that these perfectly round, perfectly formed fruits are what
their customers want. It's a big step backwards as far as I'm concerned.
People used to be perfectly happy to buy oranges that didn't all look alike."A 1992 Government Accounting Office study revealed that
Mexican growers use at least six pesticides that are illegal in the United
States, although some U.S. officials say the number has since declined.
According to a source in the Mexican Ministry of Agriculture, more than
165 million pounds of pesticides were used in the country in 1993. But the
government does not release such figures, making it impossible to tell how
NAFTA has affected total pesticide use.On a single day's visit to a farm near Culiacan, this
reporter spotted workers using parathion and methamidophos, two of the most
toxic organophosphates on the market. The local growers association claims
neither is still used here. One was being sprayed in the field of a grower
under contract with Dole Food Co.The less acutely toxic compounds paraquat, endosulfan,
and malathion were also in use that day, but no workers were following the
safety instructions on the skull-and-crossbones labels. The instructions
say special gloves and masks should be worn when handling the chemicals.
They say the chemicals are toxic and inflame the skin. They say it all in
English, which few of the workers understand, or in Spanish, which few can
read.Thankfully, no growers were applying the still more
toxic organochlorine compounds that once were the norm here. One grower
said, "We use the strongest stuff we need to keep the product coming
up on schedule but that won't show up on inspection. The organochlorines
are a dead ringer for getting caught."Most U.S. growers with operations in Culiacan claim
they are not responsible for the way their Mexican partners manage their
workers. "We just contract with them to buy the product," says
one grower who asked not to be named. "We do it precisely to avoid
the kinds of hassles you are giving me."Confronted with the fact that toxic organophosphates
were sprayed in a field the company has under contract, Dole Food Co. spokesman
Tom Pernice said, "We recognize at the corporate level that this is
an issue, and we are working on an approach that can be used in foreign
countries. We are going to craft something that could be successful."
Pernice says that Dole is involved in pilot programs intended to prevent
pesticide abuse, but he did not return repeated phone calls asking him to
name the programs.So far, the efforts of companies like Dole to prevent
pesticide abuse have been met with skepticism. "I work for U.S. growers
who have operations in Mexico, so I'm the last one to criticize, but this
is one area where I think they are terribly out of line,'' says David Runsten,
an agricultural economist and consultant for the nonprofit California Institute
of Rural Studies. "You very often find people walking around with backpack
sprayers wearing sandals and no protective clothing. If [the growers] are
conscious of the effects on workers, they should be ashamed. Essentially
they are using up these workers, using up their health very cheaply."
hen Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. officials first discussed
creating the world's largest free trade zone, environmentalists hoped the
accord would obligate Mexico to enforce its environmental standards. But
neither NAFTA nor the Global Accord on Trade and Tariffs is designed to
address social inequity. The pacts focus on reducing the danger to consumers
from pesticide-tainted produce, and not on protecting workers.Sandra Marquardt, a spokeswoman for the Washington,
D.C.-based environmental group Greenpeace, says the system is structured
to "make sure the residues don't show up in the marketplace. The longer
this continues, the more we'll have great-looking fruits and vegetables
- and dead workers. That is just not a socially acceptable way of buying
food."Since NAFTA went into effect, U.S. producers have dramatically
increased their investments in Mexico. According to a source in the Mexican
Confederation of Agricultural Producers, U.S. investment in Mexican agriculture
is up by $8 million since 1992.All this is good news for the Mexican economy, which
desperately needs foreign investment. It is likewise good for U.S. consumers,
since it will probably result in lower prices. Further, backers of agribusiness
argue that free trade itself will limit pesticide use. Since pesticides
make up as much as a third of the average cost of farm production, Mexican
growers claim to be the first to want to bring pesticide use down. (Grower
Rosario Beltran could give them a few tips-see sidebar, page ??) By teaming
up with U.S. agricultural concerns, they say they can learn the latest techniques
for growing produce without heavy pesticide use.he problem with this scenario is - as always in Mexico
- seeing that it comes to pass. In the past six years, Mexico has made hopeful
strides toward stricter environmental standards, but its new regulations
are undercut by a total lack of enforcement.For example, despite the 1987 establishment of an elaborate
agency to regulate pesticide use, Mexico still does not monitor pesticide
residue levels on produce. (The Mexican government leaves that to growers
and U.S. border authorities, who inspect an average of 1 percent of all
shipments.) And while Mexico has comprehensive occupational-safety laws
that mandate extensive precautions for workers who come into contact with
toxic chemicals, there are no inspections to see that the laws are enforced."The regulations can be very good on paper, but
if they don't verify and enforce them, it's as if they don't exist,"
says Dr. Arturo Lomeli, a prominent Mexican pesticide expert who is a member
of the prestigious environmental organization El Grupo de los Cien. "Inspection
and enforcement of worker-safety standards are almost unheard of. In all
my years traveling to the fields, I've never seen a worker properly garbed
for pesticide application."If there is hope that the Mexican government will tackle
pesticide abuse, it lies, advocates say, in NAFTA's torturously complex
side accords on labor and the environment. Under the accords, private citizens
have the right to complain if a government or industry is violating environmental
or labor laws.But under the pact, carefully worded to preserve the
autonomy of the three countries, the person, group, or agency registering
the complaint must be able to prove that the government engaged in a persistent
pattern of failure to enforce the law effectively The complaint must be
brought first to a national office, which decides whether to set up an intergovernmental
dispute-settlement panel. The panel, made up of representatives from all
three governments, can recommend fining the offending government or initiating
trade sanctions against it.Unfortunately, environmentalists say, this process puts
workers and environmentalists in the position of enforcing standards that
the government should."It puts the burden on the victims to prove that
they have been wronged," says Monica Moore, program director of the
San Francisco-based Pesticide Action Network, North American Regional Center.
"It's like putting out a little suggestion box in the capital city
and calling that policy It's just not the real world." 
exican grower Rosario Beltran says he is convinced.
Two years ago the bottom-line-minded Beltran started using biological compounds
called pheromones to keep the tomatoes and other vegetables on his 988 acres
near Las Palmas healthy.To his surprise, it worked. Beltran estimates that last
year the switch from pesticides saved him 40 percent off that bottom line
he's so concerned about."A lot of the other growers sav I'm crazy, that
all my tomatoes are going to get sick, but I just stick to my guns,"
Beltran says, driving through row upon row of his crops.Beltran is not much of a crusader, but he'd just as
soon not use pesticides that make his workers sick. As Jorge Ibarra Castarieda,
a no-nonsense grower who is also planning to switch from pesticides, puts
it: "We're consumers, too. We live here just the same as anyone else,
and we don't want our kids breathing this stuff any more than our workers
do."Beltran's partner, Bob Meyer of Meyer Tomatoes in King
City, Calif., is one of the largest U.S. importers of Mexican tomatoes.
He calls their decision to switch from pesticides common sense.To make sure that only limited amounts of chemical pesticides
are applied to crops Meyer Tomatoes exports, Meyer and Beltran employ highly
skilled supervisors to oversee the Mexican harvest.That doesn't mean their operation is without flaws -
Beltran acknowledges that their 2,000 workers often don't wear protective
clothing when applying the few chemical pesticides they still use. And the
Mexican government's strict controls make getting the biological compounds
complex and costly."It's stupid. If they want to encourage us not
to use agrochemicals, why don't they make it easier to import the new biological
ones?" Beltran asks.Despite the hassles, Beltran is convinced the switch
is a good, bottom-line business decision."At first I was a little afraid to change, I was
so used to doing it the other way," Beltran says. "I still can't
convince my neighbors. The only way to change them is by showing them the
results. It will take some time, but eventually they'll see." Esther Schrader is the award-winning Mexico City correspondent for
the San Jose Mercury News. Research assistance by Anna Snider
