Our Five Seasons: Farmworkers' Warning on Climate Change - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Alina Zàrate is a PhD student in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley and longtime farmworker justice advocate. She began working for the UFW in 2018 and has dedicated her graduate studies to investigating the relationship between climate change and farm labor.

Edward Dennis is an illustrator, art teacher, and social media marketing expert with experience working with numerous businesses, hotels, and restaurants. Additionally, Edward has multiple books, including the Boy From Mexico series. He currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with his family. 

Arturo S. Rodriguez served as president of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) for 25 years, continuing the legacy of Cesar Chavez During his tenure, he expanded union membership through aggressive organizing and negotiating campaigns, securing contracts with major agricultural employers across the U.S. He currently lives in San Antonio, Texas, still working to improve the working conditions for farm workers. 

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Higher temperatures are the most widely recognized consequence of climate change, and more frequent and extreme heat waves have become regular annual occurrences. In recent years, we have experienced longer summers, prolonged periods of extreme heat with days over 90˚ F, and more severe droughts. These features have a significant impact on agricultural production, with heat leading to crop mortality and stunted crop growth. This is in addition to reduced crop yields and reduced crop quality, with fruits and vegetables frequently bearing scars, burns, and wilts as a result of exposure to extremely high temperatures.

Heat represents one of the most deadly work hazards for farmworkers. As the frequency and duration of extreme temperatures increase, farmworker exposures to extreme heat multiply, putting their health and well-being at risk. On average, farmworkers are thirty-five times more likely to die of heat related causes compared to workers in other industries. Additionally, lower quality crops due to climate often means that workers must work harder and faster under more dangerous conditions in order to meet their quotas, putting them even more at risk of injuries. Increasing temperatures have also resulted in reduced hours of work and/or shifting work schedules that require farmworkers to begin work earlier to avoid hotter parts of the day. Both California and Washington have heat illness prevention standards requiring that outdoor workers be provided with water, shade, cool-down breaks, and other protective measures to prevent heat related illness and death. No such regulations or protections exist for outdoor workers in many other states, including Florida, or at the national level.

Vicenta, Ladis, & Andrea

Vicenta is originally from Guatemala and has worked in the fields all her life, growing corn, lima beans and other beans, and wheat. She has worked in the United States for sixteen years. Ladis is from Sinaloa, Mexico, and has worked as a farmworker since the age of eight, with twenty years of experience working in the United States. Andrea is from Guatemala and has worked in the fields since she was a child, working with potatoes, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and lettuce. She has been working in the United States for almost thirty years. They are all farmworkers in the area of Immokalee, Florida, where they work primarily in tomatoes and chili. 

Vicenta: The heat is a lot. The heat is quite intense because where I'm from, it's cold and gets even colder, so it's very hot here. Before, as the compañeras [coworkers] say, [those in charge] don’t even let you sit in the shade for a little while...nothing, nothing, nothing. And then some people have died, and they are still dying. There are companies…at the small companies that still exploit people, they are still dying from the heat, from such extreme heat. And it's not that I'm working slowly, it's that you go at the pace that others go, fast, because if you go slower, well, you can't catch up. That's why people die from the heat.

Ladis: One time, I really pushed myself when we were given a piece rate contract to clean the stakes, and we were going to clean them. And that day the heat was 100 to 105 degrees [Fahrenheit], and I said, I'm going to do everything possible, and supposedly I put my heart into it, but I don't know how I survived that day. I almost fainted.  [There] were like ten or fifteen of us who came on the bus, and each one laid back on their seat; no one spoke that day. I also laid back on my seat, and I was saying to myself, “Oh my God,” my head hurt so much that I felt like I was going to pass out. It was very sunny, and I forced my body a lot [to keep working]. I drank Gatorade and water until it was no longer possible. Sometimes I wanted to vomit, but I did not.

Andrea: In the company where I work, it was four o'clock, and a Haitian worker fainted, and I told him...I don't know, that's the way I am, I take my time when I'm very hot, and I go to get some water. It was like that. I got on the bus, and he was lying on the second seat, but I looked at him, well, he couldn't take it anymore. I told the mayordomo [similar to a supervisor] that the worker is not going to hold on, and why don't you send him to the hospital? I told him [the mayordomo] to send [the worker] or someone else [for help], but I was left with my conscience because I didn't do it [call an ambulance]...because as a worker we are coworkers, one can do it, but unfortunately I didn't do it. And time went by, and at about seven o'clock at night, he passed away, he died. He was young, he was not old. He was young, and he died at seven at night.

Jorge M

Jorge M is from Michoacán, Mexico, where he worked as a chemist for fifteen years. Nine years ago, he immigrated to Washington and has worked various jobs in agriculture, particularly in dairies. 

There are crops that withstand smoke, and there are crops that do not. For example, this apple [from the market], if you expose it to smoke, there is not so much of a problem because [after it is harvested], it goes to a later process in a warehouse. They are going to wash it, and they are going to enclose it in wax to protect it more. This apple was not cut from the tree and brought in like that. They have a series of subsequent processes that can help remove contamination from pesticides or soot in the smoke.  

There are crops that do not tolerate smoke. For example, wine grapes, their quality depends on their organoleptic qualities. You can have the texture, smell, and taste of the grape because it is going to be used for a later process, which is the formation of wine. If you add soot from the fires to these grapes, you will change their flavor.

Two or three years ago, the fires in California terribly affected the Napa Valley. All the grape production fell because of the smoke, because of the soot. We [Washington] did well because we had nowhere to sell the grapes. Per capita wine consumption has not increased. The number of people consuming wine has not increased, but the production of wine grapes has increased. So Washington had that problem in that year; it didn't have many customers. But the California fires helped Washington. They [suppliers] had to grab grapes from Washington. But really, imagine the problem that California had with the wine industry. That charcoal, that smut, directly affected the quality of the grapes.

How is pollution measured? Everything is measured on the basis of concentrations, percentages of parts per million. What contaminants are there? If you have a certain amount of a contaminant above the limit, it can be a product that is no longer for human consumption and ends up being discarded. 

How would a day laborer respond if asked about the impact of the fires on him? “It affected me because I didn't put in any more hours; I didn't work any longer.” Now, imagine a crop that can no longer be sold; again, we are back to the perfect storm, with another grain missing. It is a grower who is going to have problems next year with being able to [offer] work, and he is going to reduce the hours, which will be as much as possible to exploit people. And it's a vicious circle. So yes, a problem like the fires generates more problems than what we see with the naked eye. 

Many people say, “No, the rancher has his crop insured.” No, he does not have it all insured, and he does not receive the amount he could have received in case of a good crop. For example, if a crop returns one million dollars, the insurance [for the fire] only returns thirty thousand, which will barely cover his own operating expenses. Then the government will provide them with a subsidy, but these are things that are not...