Deaths Rally Farm Laborers

[Sequoia]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-heat28jul28,0,5795862.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Three men have died after working in the recent intense heat of the Central Valley, sparking a demand for more safeguards.

ARVIN, Calif. — There was no eulogy for Salud Zamudio-Rodriguez after his death in the fields here.

In the 24 years since he left his village in rural Mexico, family and co-workers said, he made but one lasting impression. Whether picking lemons in Riverside County, grapefruit in the Coachella Valley or oranges in Tulare County, he moved like a machine up and down the rows, they said.

But two weeks ago, in the 105-degree sun of a brutal July, he could not keep up with the tractor that was dictating his pace in a bell pepper field near this Kern County town.

Co-workers said that for more than two hours, the tractor doubled its speed in a dash to finish the last pick of one field so the grower could begin a fresh field the next morning.

Zamudio-Rodriguez, 42, was so spent that a few minutes before the shift ended on the afternoon of July 13, he broke away from the machine and collapsed.

As the others were boarding their vans to go home, he began to shake violently from heatstroke.

"We watched him dying in the field," said Soledad Reyes, 43, who had been working next to him.

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[bperci108]

1. Stop to think....

I wonder how many of us stop to think when picking up that cheap produce in Costco, Kroger or Safeway how it came to be there?

Sadly, this is just one more secret, hidden cost of industrialized agriculture and the damage it does. :cry:

Sometimes the death of a migrant worker is a slow agonizing one from cancer or some other disease caused by chemical exposure in the fields.

[nofurylike]

2. horror! thank you for posting this. eom