Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tionforthepopularperceptionthatvenenerossuffereddisproportionately
from respiratory problems.
103
Evidence from both Costa Rica and Honduras indicates that spray
workers did not use masks or respirators on a regular basis. Instead, spray
gang members tried to protect themselves by layering clothing, placing
handkerchiefs over their mouths, and teaming up with an experienced
applicator who knew how to minimize exposure. Such efforts were largely
in vain. During the course of a day's work, laborers were routinely ex-
posed to what must have been a considerable amount of Bordeaux mix-
ture. They absorbed the liquid through their skin, they inhaled it, and at
times they probably ingested it.
104
The most effective way to avoid expo-
sure was to seek a different job; in Honduras field workers frequently quit
their comparatively well paying positions on spray gangs after one or two
years. In Costa Rica, spray work was similarly disliked by field hands and
tended to be carried out by young migrant workers seeking short-term
cash income.
105
Thework of Sigatoka control marked the onset of an era in which the
export banana industry relied upon chemical inputs in order to overcome
problems associated with plant diseases, pests, and declining soil fertility.
Nearly ten years before DDT became widely available for use in agricul-
ture, thousands of field workers on export banana farms began applying
high volumes of copper sulfate. Bordeaux applicators, often wearing im-
provised and largely ineffective layers of clothing, inhaled and absorbed
unknown quantities of copper for up to eight hours a day. Although
memories of blue-green brains, beds, and sweat cannot always be taken
literally, the recollections of former spray workers in Honduras and Costa
Rica, combined with limited medical evidence related to copper toxicity
among Mediterranean vineyard sprayers, strongly suggest that exposure
toBordeauxspraycouldleadtotheaccumulationofcopperinthelungtis-
sue and the onset of respiratory illnesses. Significantly, both medical and
folk understandings of the risks associated with exposure to copper sul-
fate emphasized the role played by the environmental and social-cultural
contexts in which spray work took place. In other words, copper sulfate
exposure per se was not considered to be responsible for worker illness
anddeath,butitcontributedtothehazardousenvironmentsinwhichfield
workers lived and labored—Amaya Amador's ''green prison.''
