Yaqui Fields of Poison

by Margaret Reeves

Some of the most devastating injustices visited on indigenous farming communities around the world are the effective expropriation of their tribal lands by outside business interests, and the imposition of chemically-intensive industrial agriculture to produce crops for export. High exposure to pesticides suffered by many indigenous peoples is a frequent indicator of these injustices. The recent history of the Yaquis, an ancient people native to northwest Mexico, is colored by their struggles with the health effects of high pesticide exposure. A tragic story, it is sadly, not unique—it illustrates the ongoing burden of pesticide abuse, and disastrous impacts of the “Green Revolution” and globalization of the food system.

For years, the Yaqui people have provided cheap labor on commercial farms in Sonora. For example, the community of Potam—in the Rio Yaqui region that stretches from the Gulf of California northeast toward the Arizona boarder—owns approximately 240,000 hectares of land [1] along with seven other Yaqui pueblos in the area. Yet Yaquis are forced to work as exploited laborers on their own land. Faced with few viable options to support their families, over 90% of the land is rented out to non-Yaquis to grow wheat for export. Yaquis also farm some minor crops such as watermelon, yet it is pesticide-reliant industrial production of wheat that dominates the Yaqui Valley.

The Yaqui homeland was the arena where the intensive industrial agriculture approach of the “Green Revolution” was born (see Box). Over the last thirty-plus years this approach to feeding the world has been criticized as focusing solely on high-input productivity, rather than on the underlying systemic problems of inequitable distribution of food and global expropriation of the food system by multinational corporations. [2]

So in Sonora, wheat production is high, yet the Yaquis remain poor. Researchers suspect that in addition to poverty, the price paid by Yaquis includes health damage linked to the heavy pesticide exposure they endure. Local doctors have established a high probability that cases of cancers, developmental problems in children and birth defects among Yaqui farmworker communities are a result of exposure to agricultural pesticides. [3] Such health impacts of pesticide exposure are common in farming communities throughout the developing world.

In May of this year, over 300 community members, tribal leaders, farmers, youth and activists from Mexico, Guatemala and the U.S. convened at Potam pueblo to address the impacts of pesticide use on communities of the Rio Yaqui area. [4]

With virtually no training on pesticide hazards, no information on the chemicals they work with, or any protective equipment, Yaqui laborers routinely apply high quantities of pesticides to the wheat fields of the Yaqui Valley. Many of the pesticides they are required to apply to their own lands are unregulated in Mexico and often banned for use in other countries due to their high toxicity. As a result, Yaqui farmworkers and their families suffer especially high levels of pesticide exposure and related illnesses.

The conference in Potam was an outcome of a growing recognition and concern about the impacts of indiscriminate pesticide use on the health and well-being of the Yaqui people and indigenous communities across North America. Dramatic cases of acute, fatal poisonings have been recorded among the Yaqui, as well as a disproportionately high number of children with severe birth defects, many of which are a likely result of pesticide exposure. Three such children were at the meeting as testimony to the unjust treatment of these people by those who own and control the local systems of agricultural production, by the chemical companies that maintain pesticides are safe when used as directed, and by the negligent and complicit Mexican regulatory authorities.

One highlight of the meeting was the presentation by Dr. Elizabeth Guillette from the University of Florida of the results of her long-term study, first reported in 1998, providing strong and compelling evidence of the direct impacts of pesticide use on the physical and behavioral development of the community's children. The comparison of Yaqui children in the valley (where pesticide use is heavy) with Yaqui children in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains (where pesticide use is minimal) showed dramatic differences in motor skills—eye-hand coordination and balance—as well as cognitive skills which were observed in recall, simple problem solving and ability to draw simple stick figures (see figure). [5]

Such cases of pesticide-related human health impacts are no more unique to the Yaquis than is the imposition of industrial-scale monocropping. Similar results were seen in a large-scale study in India, released in 2004, which found that children living in regions of intensive pesticide use may be at higher risk for impaired mental development than other children. The study tested 899 children in Indian states where pesticides are used intensively in growing cotton. Using the methodology developed for studying the Yaquis, the research compared the results with a nearly equal number of children living where few agricultural pesticides are applied. In more than two-thirds of the cases, children living where pesticides are widely used performed significantly worse in the tests. [6]

Drawings of a person by children living in the Yaqui Valley of Sonora, Mexico where pesticide use is intensive. Valley children had signi? cantly less stamina and hand-eye coordination, poorer short-term memory and were less adept at drawing a person (right) than were children in the foothills (left) where traditional methods of intercropping control pests in gardens and insecticides are rarely used indoors. Used with permission of Environmental Health Perspectives from the 1998 study by Dr. Elizabeth Guillette.

In addition to the research on pesticide poisoning, the May meeting in Sonora included presentations on human and legal rights of the Yaqui, as well as workshops to develop alternatives and solutions. Participants, especially the traditional Yaqui authorities, were grateful for ongoing support from Okechukwu Ibeanu, a UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, on the adverse effects of illicit dumping and movement of toxic wastes and products on the farming communities. [7] Ibeanu sent a statement to the gathering that was read aloud requesting that community members and health professionals continue to submit written testimonies in support of his ongoing investigation of this situation.

The meeting reached a conclusion relevant for farming communities worldwide, that continued investigation of pesticide exposure and health issues is essential, including study of long-term or chronic health effects. However, the point was stressed that while ample data demonstrate the relationship between exposure to certain pesticides and many of the long-term health effects under discussion at the meeting, it remains very difficult to conclusively prove the relationship between any particular pesticide exposure and specific cases of long-term health effects such as developmental disorders and cancer.

By contrast, it is easier to prove a relationship between pesticide exposure and commonly experienced short-term health effects. Many of these short-term impacts are important in their own right, and can serve as indicators that subsequent long-term effects may occur. Most importantly, unless the relationship between pesticide exposure and resulting short-term effects is conclusively proved and documented, the problem remains largely invisible. This makes it easy for chemical manufacturers and government regulatory authorities to underplay and deny the importance of this widespread problem.

To an enthusiastic response by the meeting participants, Margaret Reeves from PANNA and Pam Miller from Alaska Community Action on Toxics [8]—a PANNA affiliate—presented a few easy-to-use tools for community-led pesticide monitoring, including PANNA's Drift Catcher for monitoring levels of pesticides in air samples. Tools like these could enable the Yaquis to document the presence of and probable human exposure to pesticides in their air, water and soil.

Indigenous communities everywhere can use community pesticide monitoring to fight against high pesticide exposure and its devastating effects on their health and well-being. At the same time, it will require the continued collaboration of groups and movements like those who organized the May meeting in Potam: networks addressing human rights, environmental health, sustainable agriculture, international trade and the continuing concentration of corporate control over the world's food systems. Ending exploitation of the Yaqui's health, land and dignity is a challenge to be met at each of these levels, and the solutions will be applicable globally.

Dr. Margaret Reeves is a senior scientist at PANNA and works closely with farm workers and farming communities on pesticide exposure and worker rights issues.

References

1. United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights. 2004. Economic, Social And Cultural Rights: Adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products and wastes on the enjoyment of human rights. Report of the Special Rapporteur, Okechukwu Ibeanu. Addendum with updates of cases contained in previous reports. E/CN.4/2005/45/Add.1. December 8.

2. For a classic critique of the Green Revolution by another Nobel laureate, see Sen, Amartya. 1982. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, Oxford, UK.

As well as Shiva, Vandana. 1991. The Violence of the Green Revolution: Third World Agriculture, Ecology and Politics. Third World Network Penang, Malaysia.

3. Norrell, B. 2006. Yaqui in Mexico suffer effects of toxic pesticides used in agricultural fields. Indian Country Today. Posted: February 20, 2006 ( http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412487).

4. Participants included Mayo, Huichol, Tohono O'odham, Yaqui and Zapoteca representatives from Mexico; Yaqui, Athabascan, Otomi, Ahtna Athabascan (Indian), Supiaq (Aleut/Eskimo) and Pueblo representatives from the US; and Mayan representation from Guatemala. The gathering was hosted by the North-South indigenous Network Against Pesticides, a project of the International Indian Treaty Council, in coordination with the Traditional Yaqui Authorities of several communities and the local organization Yaquis United For Mother Earth.

5. Guillette, E.A., et.al. 1998. An anthropological approach to the evaluation of preschool children exposed to pesticides in Mexico, Environmental Health Perspectives. 106(6):347-53. Guillette's research continues, with a recent study of Yaqui girls: Guillette, et al., Altered Breast Development in Young Girls from an Agricultural Environment, 2006, Environmental Health Perspectives. 114(3): 471-74.

6. Pesticides Affect Child Development in India, PANUPS, June 22, 2004, citing K. Kuruganti, Arrested Development, Greenpeace, India, 2004. http://www.greenpeace.org/india/campaigns/sustainable-agriculture/the-arrested-development-study (accessed June 20, 2006)

7. op.cit. United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, 2004.

8. Alaska Community Action on Toxics works towards justice by advocating for environmental and community health. ACAT believes that everyone has the right to clean air, clean water, and toxic-free food ; and works to eliminate the production and release of harmful chemicals by industry and military sources; ensure community right-to-know; achieve policies based on the precautionary principle; and support the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples. http://www.akaction.org/

9. Rosset, P et. al. 2000. Lessons from the Green Revolution- do we need new technology to end hunger? Tikkun Magazine vol.15, no.2. http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/twr118c.htm ;

and Evenson, R. and Gollin, D. 2003. Assessng the impact of the Green Revolution, 1960-2000. Science 300:758-62