The people who work to grow and harvest the food we eat play a key role in ensuring our good health and proper nutrition. And yet they often do so at the expense of their own health, owing to a combination of factors: the arduous nature of the work, the difficulties accessing the health system for the most precarious workers, and the constant exposure to the potentially toxic substances in the agrochemicals commonly applied in agribusiness.
“We suffer from health problems related to working in agriculture: back pain, neck injuries, lumbago, musculoskeletal conditions, and, because of our exposure to agrochemicals, headaches, stomach problems and allergies,” says Ana Pinto, from the Jornaleras de Huelva en Lucha (JHL), a collective defending the rights of the women employed as seasonal labour to pick strawberries and red fruit in the Andalusian province of Huelva, in Spain. According to Pinto, not only is it “very hard to have these types of ailments recognised as occupational illnesses”, but agricultural workers also have difficulty accessing sick leave.
https://www.equaltimes.org/what-about-the-health-of?lang=enhttps://www.equaltimes.org/what-about-the-health-of?lang=en