EXPOSURE IN THE FIELDS 

“Farmworkers in California’s Salinas Valley work with pesticides tied to illnesses, including some cancers.”

When Agustin Espinoza Jaramillo shuffles to the doctor who treats his prostate cancer, he says he thinks about the three decades he spent applying pesticides to the fields that surround this farming town. Jaramillo, 72 years old, long knew some pest-killing chemicals have been linked to health problems including cancer. Even so, his own diagnosis came as a surprise. 

“I can’t say that I fully understood everything I was applying,” Jaramillo said. 

Greenfield, a town of 19,000, sits in the Salinas Valley, where the cultivation of vegetables, wine grapes and strawberries drives the economy. The town’s middle and high schools and many homes are across the street from fields where growers apply some of the nine million pounds of pesticides used in the surrounding Monterey County each year. Some research has connected specific agricultural pesticides to increased risks of cancers including prostate, brain, and blood cancers. Farmers and workers who apply pesticides to fields are diagnosed with those cancers at higher-than-average rates, some studies suggest. Other studies have presented mixed results.

One resident pushing for tougher statewide regulations is Audelia Cervantes Garcia, 63, who lost her husband Alejandro Cervantes Perez to lung cancer in 2010.

Perez started weeding crops in Greenfield at 16. He followed the grape harvest around the Salinas Valley. In 2005, when Perez was 45, he developed a persistent cough. In 2007, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and put on a waitlist for a transplant.

Perez was an occasional smoker. Some evidence suggests exposure to some pesticides could increase lung-cancer risk. Perez’s doctors encouraged Garcia to find out which pesticides her husband had worked with. She consulted lawyers who told her linking her husband’s cancer to pesticide exposure would be difficult. 

Garcia wants officials to investigate local cancer cases. “We as a community need to stop being fearful in speaking up,” she said.

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(Supported by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project)