Every summer since 2008, the Farm Worker Documentary Project takes us into fields and labor camps across North Carolina to interview farm workers about their experiences as workers in our state.
Toxic Free staff and our Farm Worker Documentary Interncapture the farm workers' personal stories on film to bring their voices into the conversation about pesticide use in North Carolina.
Farm workers and their families are on the front lines of pesticide exposure because they are surrounded by pesticides all day, every day. Their families also face high risk for exposure because workers bring pesticide residues home on their skin and work clothes.
With the Farm Worker Documentary Project, we hope to tell a story about the role pesticides play in making agriculture the 3rd most dangerous industry in the US, how our farm workers are affected by pesticide use, and how we can change the way our food is grown.
Contact us about showing the Farm Worker Documentary to your organization, club, church or community group.
Overworked & Under Spray: Young Farm Workers' Pesticide Stories (2011)
This short film shares stories from young farm worker about their exposure to pesticides in the fields, and the resulting health effects. The film features interviews with six young North Carolina farm workers, as well as health outreach and advocacy experts. In English (below) and Spanish with subtitles. 6 min.
Take Action! This spring, NC Representative Jonathan Jordan filed an important bipartisan bill to extend the protections of our child labor laws to children who work on farms, exempting kids working on their own family’s farm.
Unfortunately, the bill was quashed in the chaos of the 2011 legislative session.
You can help fight child labor by asking your state legislators to address NC’s child labor problem when they return for the 2012 session. And you can email Representative Jordan to thank him for sponsoring a child labor reform bill this spring and ask him to try again next year!
Provides a glimpse into the experiences of North Carolina farm workers working around pesticides on conventional farms throughout NC. The film combines interviews with North Carolina tobacco workers with lush photography from the fields and camp housing. In Spanish with subtitles. 5 min.
An unfettered assessment of the plight of the migrant farm worker, as told by the workers themselves. The film addresses the reasons people migrate to work in agriculture, and highlights farm workers' common experiences as immigrant workers in NC. In Spanish with subtitles. 5 min.
