Dolores Huerta: Still Fighting for Farmworkers’ Rights

Dolores Huerta: Still Fighting for Farmworkers’ Rights


Legendary feminist and workers’ rights activist Dolores Huerta, who cofounded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez in the 1960s, recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to sound the alarm on a common herbicide used on millions of acres of cropland in the U.S. that could be endangering the health and lives of the very people who produce our food—farmworkers and their families.





Glyphosate, also known as Roundup, is commonly used in U.S. commercial agricultural fields to prevent the growth of broadleaf weeds and grasses. The herbicide is sprayed onto fields of genetically modified crops, sometimes called “Roundup Ready” crops, whose DNA has been altered to be resistant to the chemical. Agri-business giant Monsanto produces Roundup and is also one of the world’s largest producers of bioengineered, glyphosate-resistant seeds. About 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the U.S. are Roundup Ready crops.

Speaking at a March Against Monsanto event, Huerta explained that farmworkers were once told that the herbicide was “medicine” for the plants, but the World Health Organization has classified glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen” to humans. That classification came as no surprise to Huerta, who noted high cancer rates in farmworkers, in addition to high rates of hypertension, autism, and birth defects in children. The aerial application of glyphosate to farm fields, said Huerta, leads to spray drift, which impacts farmworkers in their homes and also exposes their children, as schools are often located near farm fields.

Since the mid-1990s, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), the use of glyphosate on genetically engineered crops has increased 16-fold. But plants can adapt, and many of the weeds that glyphosate once killed have developed their own resistance. As a result, farmers have had to apply even more toxic herbicides to their fields, often mixing glyphosate with these other chemicals.

These health concerns have prompted Huerta to call for mandatory labeling of genetically modified foods, also known as GMOs, to “have the consumer reflect and think about how food is grown.” Then, consumers would have a real choice when deciding which types of food to buy and what kinds of agricultural practices to support.

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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2015/05/04/dolores-huerta-still-fighting-for-farmworkers-rights/