The Heat Wave Crushing the West Is a Preview of Farmworkers' Hot Future

[marmar]

The Heat Wave Crushing the West Is a Preview of Farmworkers’ Hot Future
By the end of the century, the San Joaquin Valley could endure two months of extreme heat every summer. What will this mean for agriculture and farmworker communities?

BY ANNE MARSHALL-CHALMERS SEPTEMBER 2, 2022


(Civil Eats) Ascorching heat wave is beginning in California. In the San Joaquin Valley, temperatures are expected to stay above 105 degrees for eight days, endangering the 200,000-plus farmworkers who pick the valley’s tomatoes, strawberries, and other crops. On Tuesday, the temperature could soar to 112 degrees in parts of this vast, 8-million-acre swath of California that grows much of the nation’s fruit and vegetables.

As Civil Eats has reported, the consequences of this heat can be deadly. Farmworkers, who are a majority migrant and Spanish-speaking workforce, die of heat-related causes at a rate of 20 times more than other professions.

In 2004, a worker in the valley died from heat stroke after he spent 10 hours picking grapes in 105-degree weather, prompting California to enact the first heat standard in the nation. It requires employers to provide water and shade when temperatures climb above 80 degrees. Fatal heat-related illnesses have decreased since, according to the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, though a recent investigation found understaffing makes it hard to enforce heat protocols, and deaths have continued. At the national level, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is in the initial stages of creating a federal heat injury and illness prevention.

As climate change drives more extreme heat in California, Angel Santiago Fernandez-Bou, a postdoctoral scholar in environmental systems at University of California, Merced, says extended heat waves like the one coming up will only increase.

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How will more extreme heat in the San Joaquin Valley impact workers who work in the fields?

Historically, here in the valley, there have been four or five days of extreme heat, and the projection is that by the end of the century, there will be 15 times more, so there will be two months of extreme heat.

You will see a big impact on farmworkers because no one will be able to work under those conditions, and with the law restricting farmworkers exposure to extreme heat, it will make it more challenging to rely on farm work as a profession. It would be inhumane to be working in such extreme heat. ..............(more)

https://civileats.com/2022/09/02/the-heat-wave-crushing-the-west-is-a-preview-of-farmworkers-hot-future/