Support safer food, from field to fork ~ United Farm Workers

Support safer food, from field to fork. Sign the petition TODAY! The UFW is proud to be working with a coalition of environmental and farm worker groups to ensure revisions in the federal Worker Protection Standard protect farm workers from dangerous pesticides. It's the time of year that we enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables. Many of our summer favorites — watermelon, strawberries, peaches — carry pesticide residues from field to table. While even small amounts of these chemicals can be harmful to our health, farm workers face a greater risk due to direct exposure in fields and orchards. Too often, they lack sufficient safeguards. The Worker Protection Standard that was designed to fill this gap have for too long been weak and unenforced — and we hear revisions are finally in the works. This must change. Please help. Add your voice to this urgent issue. Take action today and sign the petition urging policymakers to better protect the country’s nearly two million farm workers from dangerous pesticides. It's time for EPA to get it right and quit putting farm workers at risk. http://action.ufw.org/fieldtofork After you sign the petition, please ask your friends and family to sign too. You can send them an e-mail, post this campaign on your Facebook and/or Twitter page by clicking here or by going to http://action.ufw.org/page/share/fieldtofork

Public integrity.org: 7/17/13 Farm worker advocates press EPA to update pesticide rules Saying they are plagued by pesticides but protected by only a thin layer of government regulation, farm workers and their advocates are pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to update rules that are two decades old, and, critics say, dangerously dated. Farm worker advocates from Florida to California were in Washington Monday and Tuesday to press the EPA and members of Congress to tighten rules meant to protect agricultural laborers from pesticides in the fields. Their target: The Worker Protection Standard, a set of EPA rules meant to reduce the risk of pesticide-related injuries for some 2.5 million agricultural workers and pesticide handlers at 600,000 agricultural establishments nationwide. Yet, even as the perils of pesticides have become better known, EPA protections have not been seriously updated in 20 years. And, the Center for Public Integrity reported last year, the federal agency can only guess at the number of pesticide-related injuries for workers who often toil in the shadows. In addition, the Center found, the EPA often hands off pesticide enforcement to the states — which receive and investigate modest numbers of complaints each year. The mix of old regulations and thin enforcement leads to tangible problems for laborers in the fields, advocates say. ... MORE

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