Luca Greco is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog.
Pesticides pose a fundamental threat to environmental justice communities around the country, not only in rural areas, but also in urban areas. While many might picture crop dusters and fields of corn when they think of pesticides, their widespread use pervades urban and suburban areas as well and threatens the health and safety of all communities. Those most burdened by the application of pesticides are black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities that live near production and storage facilities, reside in low-income housing, or live near agricultural lands where pesticides are applied. The widespread use of pesticides, in turn, leads to a range of health harms that endanger the wellbeing of all those exposed.
Pesticides in BIPOC Communities and Beyond
Pesticides enter environmental justice communities through several different vectors. The first is the initial production and storage of pesticides. It is well known now that industrial production and storage facilities are sited near areas with higher rates of poverty, higher proportions of Black and Latine residents, and with lower rates of educational attainment. These areas are subject to risk of exposure from facility disasters, delays in cleanup when contamination occurs and inadequate storage leading to long term leaking.
While direct interactions from application of pesticides on crops or in housing is the primary vector of pesticide exposure, pesticides have been found to persist and spread in groundwater. In rural areas the primary contaminant is herbicides used in crop production, while in urban areas, the concern is insecticides. Both are forms of pesticides that are used extensively. Studies indicate that pesticides are more pervasive and widespread than previously thought and could pose a threat to the health of people around the country.
Pesticides are applied liberally to crops for pest management in rural communities. That pesticide use often occurs predominantly in communities with the greatest racial, ethnic and wealth disparities. Moreover, the farmworkers responsible for application suffer the most acute harms, with hundreds of thousands of farmworkers reporting pesticide poisoning each year. In urban areas, pesticides are sprayed extensively in low-income housing for pest control. The result of the disproportionate use of pesticides in BIPOC communities is that of 85% of pregnant African American and Dominican women who reported pesticide use in their residence, 83% had at least one pesticide found in umbilical cord samples. A similar trend follows nationally, with studies finding higher concentrations of pesticide biomarkers among African Americans and Mexican Americans compared to non-Hispanic whites who do not live in poverty.
Health Impacts
Direct exposure to pesticides causes farmworkers to suffer from nausea, blindness, vomiting, and more in the short term, with long term exposure contributing to cancer, neurological disorders, and respiratory conditions. While there is some uncertainty inherent in researching the impacts of pesticides, laboratory studies indicate that pesticides have carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting effects, and can have synergistic effects with other environmental factors to exacerbate risk of disease or aggravation of existing conditions. With pesticide residue found on or in many foods and drinks, residual pesticides in drinking water and the spread of pesticides through the environment, bioaccumulation of these chemicals in the human body interferes with metabolism, nervous, cardiovascular, and endocrine systems contributing to chronic illnesses and susceptibility to infectious diseases. While direct causation is difficult to prove across the human population, studies indicate that the pervasive presence of pesticides in the human environment increases the risk of disease.
Certain populations are especially burdened by the exposure to pesticides. Infants and children are particularly vulnerable to pesticide exposure, as they are too young to metabolize and detoxify the chemicals. Exposure during critical early life development can lead to disruption in the development of organs, including the brain, which can have long-lasting effects, including higher rates of childhood cancer and could contribute to chronic neurological disorders.
Regulatory Weakness
While the issue of pesticides is widely understood in the scientific community, the regulatory structure governing the use of pesticides remains relatively weak. EPA is the agency primarily responsible for regulating the sale, labeling, storage and use of pesticides under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). FIFRA remains a weak statute for regulating pesticides, however, with a focus mostly on labeling (with some limited standards to protect workers) and incredibly weak enforcement, it fails to adequately protect those most harmed by pesticide use.
Time for a Change
Current pesticide use and regulation indicates the failure of the current regulatory structure. FIFRA is a more than 45-year-old statute that falls short of modern scientific knowledge. Those bearing the brunt of this inadequate regulation are predominantly environmental justice communities, but everyone is harmed by the widespread use of pesticides in both urban and rural areas. It is in everyone’s interest to push for stronger restrictions on the scale and type of pesticides used in agriculture and beyond. Amending FIFRA to strengthen its requirements and enforcement provisions, extending authority to agencies like USDA and FDA to co-regulate the use of pesticides with EPA, and implementing stronger consumer safety protections could help to alleviate the varied harms of pesticides on all communities.
The views and opinions expressed on the FBLE Blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FBLE. While we review posts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee the reliability and completeness of any legal analysis presented; posts on this Blog do not constitute legal advice. If you discover an error, please reach out to contact@farmbilllaw.org.
