Racial Disparities in Exposure to Ag Pesticides Documented while Trump Administration Dismantles Programs

A study in Birth Defects Research bolsters existing evidence that agricultural workers, and specifically Hispanic workers in California, are disproportionately bearing the burden of pesticide exposure. Caroline Cox, formerly of the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, and Jonathan K. London, PhD of the University of California, Davis, examine how currently-used agricultural pesticides unequally affect communities along racial and ethnic gradients. Ms. Cox is a member of Beyond Pesticides’ board.

Using 2022 data from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) and the U.S. Census Bureau, the researchers analyzed county, census tract, and school district data for the percentage of non-Hispanic White population in each population unit and determined the total agricultural use of commercial formulations of pesticides in the same units. CDPR reporting system’s granular data, including application locations at a resolution of one square mile, and the specific products, dates, and amounts of pesticides used, allows comparison of the data with demographic records. The results show that Hispanics’ exposure status is robust, independent of current or past data or “individual pesticides of public health concern.” Pesticides that harm reproductive health were strikingly concentrated among Hispanic populations.

There is abundant evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to environmental hazards. A University of California, Berkeley study from 2015, for example, found that Hispanics were six times more likely than non-Hispanic Whites to live in zip codes most affected by such hazards, followed by African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders. Pesticide use and toxic chemical releases were the hazards most unequally distributed. As Beyond Pesticides noted last year, “83 percent of farmworkers consider themselves Hispanic/Latino.”