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Pesticide Exposure
        Just as the Midwest is well known as the Breadbasket of the United States, the Salinas Valley has long been referred its Salad Bowl, and rightly so.  The vast majority of broccoli, brussel sprouts, artichokes and strawberries, just to name a few, come from this small but extremely productive region in California.  Unfortunately, vegetables are not all that’s being produced.  Industrialized agriculture uses mass amounts of highly toxic synthetic and natural pesticides that cause serious illness in humans when exposed.
        Following the Second World War and also as part of the Green Revolution, new and more deadly pesticides flooded the marketplace.  Whether for industrial agriculture or home use, pesticides became a part of everyday life.  It has only been in the last forty years, though, since the publication of the well-known Rachel Carson book Silent Spring that people have started questioning their use and toxicity.  As universities, private organizations, non-profits, and health groups do more and more research, the stack of evidence showing just how harmful these chemicals are to humans is rapidly growing.  Still, in California in the 1990’s, there was a documented a 31% increase of pesticide use. This includes a 129% increase in use of known carcinogens and a 54% increase in nerve toxins.
        These real threats obviously pose the greatest risk to the employees walking the fields - weeding, tending, and harvesting the crops.  On the Central Coast, as in much of California agriculture, these farm workers are predominantly of Latino origin.  Everyday thousands of Latinos and Latinas go to work and become exposed to these deadly chemicals for minimum wage.  In addition to being exposed daily to the pesticides in the fields, the residue from these substances gets carried into the home on their clothes and shoes. To some degree, these women and men who are being exposed daily - literally have to detoxify when coming home to their family before they can hold their children.

WHAT IS ALBA DOING ABOUT IT?
        At both Triple M Ranch and the Rural Development Center, the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association teaches farming techniques that employ few, if any, inputs.  In the Small Farmer Education Program at the RDC, farmworkers and others who want to work their own land come to learn organic farming methods on its certified organic land (to be certified organic, you cannot use pesticides).  On a warm day in spring, you can walk the fields with a graduate of the program and pick fresh organic strawberries right from the ground and eat them without worry.  Besides teaching independence, this promotes environmental justice.  Not only is it a safe environment for the farmers, it is safe for their families.  On any given weekend you can find a number of children roaming the property on bikes and in playhouses.  ALBA doesn’t only promote family farming, it promotes safe and just family farming.

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