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Posted on 05/08/2025 5:58:29 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Prominent farmworker activist and organizer Dolores Huerta joined several other speakers at a public meeting in Watsonville Saturday to raise awareness about the dangers of agricultural pesticide use on farmworkers, children, consumers and residents throughout Santa Cruz County.
Childhood cancer rates in the county are more than 38% above the nationwide childhood cancer rate of 16.3%. This makes the cancer rate for children up to age 14 the second highest of all California counties, according to Dr. Ann López, the director of the Center for Farmworker Families.
The meeting was organized by the Campaign for Organic and Regenerative Agriculture (CORA).
CORA’s website states that more than 1 million pounds of pesticides are used in Santa Cruz County each year. The majority of this usage is concentrated in the Pajaro Valley, often near houses and schools.
López said that “98.5% of the pesticides associated with childhood leukemia and 95.2% of pesticides tied to childhood brain cancer were applied in 2019 in this zip code 95076 alone.”
The ZIP code encompasses all of Watsonville.
Huerta urged the community to stop buying berries grown by Driscoll’s because much of their produce is sprayed with toxic pesticides.
She also said that Driscoll’s won’t let its farm workers unionize, and as a result, they aren’t able to improve their working conditions.
“The one thing about having a union contract is [that] when you sit down at the table to negotiate, you can say to them, ‘We don’t want you to use pesticides.’ You can make that a condition of the work.”
Among the speakers was Marciela Cruz, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer after working in strawberry fields in Salinas. She said she had undergone eight chemotherapy sessions and had to have her entire stomach removed. Her doctor told her the cancer may have been caused by her exposure to toxic pesticides sprayed in the fields.
Mireya Gómez-Contreras, the administrative co-leader of Esperanza Community Farms, interpreted for Cruz.
Regarding the non-organic field behind MacQuiddy Elementary, Gómez-Contreras, on Cruz’s behalf, said that if Cruz could speak to the rancher who owned that farm, she’d tell them “to get rid of the ranch or to turn it organic because the pesticides are affecting all of the farmworkers.”
According to López, Monterey County—compared to every other county in the state—has a higher percentage of schools and students in areas with the greatest pesticide use, affecting 29 schools and 18,525 students.
She said that the lifetime cancer risk at Ohlone Elementary school in Royal Oaks is twice the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s threshold.
“In general, Latino schoolchildren are 3.2 times more likely than white students to attend schools with the highest use of the most hazardous pesticides.” López said.
“The disparity is most notable in the Pajaro Valley area. “You would not find this in north [Santa Cruz] county,” she said.
The meeting drew a crowd of over 100 people, who gathered on a dirt road between MacQuiddy Elementary and two agricultural fields. The location reflected the importance of organizations like the Center for Farmworker Families and the United Farm Workers (cofounded by Huerta) as grassroots movements.
At the end of her speech, Huerta led the crowd through her famous “Sí, se puede” chant to encourage them to continue fighting against pesticide use.
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Elon Musk’s farmhand robots can’t come soon enough.
What? Anyone should know this is ridiculous. One in six children does not have cancer. One in six children does not have a bout with cancer growing up.
These people are going to lead us straight into a major famine.
“Prominent farmworker activist and organizer Dolores Huerta..”
Never heard of her.
Then she won’t be a farm worker anymore.
Rachel Carson never died.
WITHOUT PESTICIDES-—THERE IS NO CROP TO WORK ON, DUMMY.
HAVED YOU EVER SEEN AN INVASION OF “ARMY WORMS”???
I HAVE—_WHEN I WAS A KID ON A DAIRY FARM IN WISCONSIN.
THEY CRAWL ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE-—EATING ANYTHING & EVERYTHING.
ALFALFA/CORN/OATS/GARDEN/LAWN GRASS/PASTURE
SOME PEOPLE CANNOT EVEN FIND THE DOTS-—MUCH LESS CONNECT THE DOTS
> These people are going to lead us straight into a major famine. <
That was my first thought as well. Agricultural pesticide use should be sensibly monitored. But my goodness. Go too far in the other direction, and the bugs will eat fine while people starve.
BUT WHO WILL PICK THE CROPS?
she’s right.
THEY ALREADY MANAGED TO GET A CALIF LAW THAT BARS MACHINE HARVESTING
Now why is the fake news pushing this now................
You notice she’s not down in Mehico’ complaining.
Claim to fame was getting smacked.
I never eat anything with pesticides on it; organic Is not that much more $$.
Have been doing that for decades. My MD says I’m the healthiest person he’s ever seen at my age. 89 in June. Weight 116, try to walk at least 20 minutes a day, don’t eat any saturated fats, beef or pork.
American beekeepers lost between 50 - 70 percent of their bee colonies last year due to pesticides and disease. No bees, no pollination, no food! Just say no to those “DIY home kits” and use natural methods of pest control that doesn’t kill our pollinators!
Our food chain really IS an absolute MESS! I Stand With RFK! (Jr.)
Putting in a PLUG here for our Monthly Garden Thread. Grow Your Own! Come Join Us! Save Yourselves, LOL!
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4314384/posts
For anyone that cares, the most pesticide-filled veggies and fruits that you normally buy at the grocery store are:
Strawberries
Spinach
Kale & Collards
Grapes
Peaches
Pears
Nectarines
Apples
Bell & Hot Peppers
Cherries
Blueberries
Green Beans
The ‘cleanest’ vegetables that you can buy are also at this link:
https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/full-list.php
Full Disclosure: My Piggly Wiggly had the Driscolls-brand Strawberries on sale (Buy 1 Get 1 FREE) a few weeks back. That is the brand this woman is fighting with. They were the most luscious, DELICIOUS, red-to-the-core actually-tasted-like-strawberries I have had in a very long time, other than out of my own Strawberry Patch. So, a few bugs died due to pesticide use. I hate bugs. What do they contribute? Other than Pollinators and ‘Good Bugs’ that are predators to the Bad Bugs, what do they deliver to Mankind? ;)
The authors make a pretty convincing argument that a lot of what was broadly labeled "polio" in the first half of the twentieth century was actually paralysis caused by pesticides.
Here is a book for families wanting to grow pesticide free foods.
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