Dig In: Dirty and Dignified

by Sarah Snow, Toxic Free NC Outreach Coordinator Intern

On March 8, 2014, community leaders and teachers gathered in the garden of Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh, NC.  There were there to attend the Dig in Community Garden & Urban Agriculture Summit , where I would be volunteering. This was my first time volunteering with Toxic Free NC, and I was excited to learn about the growth of the pesticide-free food movement in North Carolina!  Dig In would be the perfect place to meet people in our state who already cared about organic gardening.

Many of the people who attended Dig In were teachers who wanted to learn how to start organic community gardens at their schools.  While children played in the museum, I talked with teachers about organic food and why pesticide-free schools were important for their communities.  These teachers shared their concerns about the health of our state's children and their excitement about using what they learned at Dig In back in their own communities.

TFNC volunteers Jean and Margaret making seed bombs!

Our table also caught the attention of curious families who were visiting Marbles Kids Museum.  Kids were happy to get their hands dirty at our seed bomb station where they made balls of clay, soil, and seeds.  After they dried in the sun, the seed bombs could be "detonated" to set loose a sea of wild
flowers.  While kids were busy in the mud, parents collected our fact sheets about how to make their homes and gardens pesticide-free.

In addition to the interest in organic gardening, attendees at Dig In were also eager to sign Toxic Free NC's petition to the EPA!  After learning about the lack of pesticide protections for young farmworkers, people felt strongly about signing the petition.  Because children as young as ten can work in the fields with some crops in North Carolina, young farmworkers are at a very high risk for pesticide exposure.  No on understands better than parents and teachers how important it is to protect growing minds and bodies from dangerous chemicals!  Teachers and parents also want to make sure that the food their children eat is grown safely and responsibly.  These signatures will increase the growing tide of voices calling for protections for young farmworkers!

After a long day of tabling, I felt refreshed!  It felt good to volunteer with energetic people ready to "dig in" to organic gardening.  All the people I met that day strengthened my own belief that change begins with individuals.  When motivated communities come together, organizations like Toxic Free NC and their volunteers help change our state for the better!

Seed bombs that kids at Dig In made, waiting to dry and be thrown or planted!

This is an improvement: Teens applying pesticides

Photo credit: Valley_Photographs via Flickr

by Fawn Pattison, Senior Advocate

This ought to give you a sense of just how inadequate the US EPA’s Worker Protection Standard for agricultural pesticides has been over the last 22 years:

Last week the EPA announced a proposal that would significantly strengthen the Worker Protection Standard, designed to prevent hazardous exposure to pesticides for the 2+ million people who harvest our food in the US. One of the proposal’s hallmarks: a new minimum age of 16 to mix, load and apply pesticides, or to re-enter fields for work before the required safety interval has expired (with an exemption for farm family members). The previous rule posed no minimum age at all (though separate regulations from the Department of Labor prevent teens younger than 16 from applying a subset of highly-toxic pesticides).

Does anyone else feel a little concerned about 16 and 17 year-olds applying pesticides on farms? Toxic Free NC asked North Carolina farmworkers – people who know a thing or two about how dangerous pesticides can be – what they believed should be the minimum age to work as a pesticide handler.

“One should be a responsible person, direct, who focuses, who is attentive to what he is doing.  Because one error can cost your life,” says Alfredo, a North Carolina tobacco worker interviewed by Toxic Free NC. “So, this person should be prepared in everything and be careful of doing the job, be responsible with the job. And well, a person of 16, 17, 14 years of age…they are not responsible.” Many workers felt that a pesticide handler should be someone over twenty. None of the 45 workers we asked said that anyone under 18 should perform tasks involving pesticide use.

To be sure, the proposed changes to the Worker Protection Standard would make work with pesticides on farms significantly safer, if implemented well and properly enforced (that’s a big “if”). For example, the EPA has proposed annual safety trainings – a huge step forward from the current standard of training workers on pesticide safety only once every five years. The training content would be expanded to make sure that workers know about the long-term health effects of pesticide exposure, and how pesticide exposure can affect the health of their spouses and children when pesticide residues travel home on their hair, skin and clothes.

But the proposal also takes some notable steps backwards – like removing the requirement that employers post all the information about recent pesticide applications at a central point where workers can review it. EPA declined to require medical monitoring for workers handling the most toxic pesticides – a step that health agencies have been encouraging for years as a way of tracking whether the safety measures are actually working.

Overall, the proposed rules – which will affect more than 150,000 farmworkers in North Carolina, and upwards of 2 million across the US – are indeed a significant improvement over the current state of affairs. But this statement may sound like faint praise, considering just how ineffective the current state of affairs has been at preventing worker pesticide exposure. Recent studies have found that North Carolina farmworkers and their families experience widespread pesticide exposure, even when following the current safety requirements.

The chemical industry will argue energetically that new regulations are not needed – that just enforcing the rules we already have would fix the problem. For the EPA to pass stronger pesticide rules, it’s critical that those who support them make their voices heard. EPA will be accepting public comment on the proposed rule for 90 days through the regulations.gov website. For those of us who want safe food, and care about the people who harvest it, this is a great opportunity to make a difference – and one that we’re not likely to have again anytime soon.

Not up for writing your own comment letter? Sign our petition to raise the minimum age for pesticide handlers to 18 years old.

NEWS RELEASE: New pesticide rules seek to address long-standing safety problems

EPA proposes updating Worker Protection Standard for Agricultural Pesticides after more than twenty years of problems.

WASHINGTON DC– In North Carolina and Florida, three babies born in 2005 brought to light in the most painful way that pesticide exposure poses dangers to farmworkers and their children. All three babies were born with severe birth defects. Their mothers had worked together on tomato farms for the produce company Ag-Mart in both states. State investigators found hundreds of instances of pesticide safety problems, but were unable to prove pesticide violations in the case, because of loopholes in the Worker Protection Standard – the very pesticide rules they were trying to enforce.

The federal Worker Protection Standard, first adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992, is notoriously difficult to enforce. The standard does not require record-keeping to document whether pesticide rules have actually been followed – that loophole doomed the Ag-Mart case. The Worker Protection Standard requires only minimal training on the risks that pesticide exposure can pose to workers’ children and families, so many workers don’t find out about those hazards until after the worst has happened. Today the EPA proposed strengthening the Worker Protection Standard to address many pesticide safety concerns – including those raised in the high-profile birth defects case.

The Worker Protection Standard was also designed with adult workers in mind. But agriculture is different from most other industries in that it allows children to join labor crews at 12 years old – even at 10 in some crops – and these children are exposed to pesticides on the job. Yesenia Cuello and her sister Neftali began working on tobacco and sweet potato farms in North Carolina when Yesenia was 14 and Neftali was 12. Both girls report that they saw pesticides used nearby and were even exposed to the drift, but never knew what pesticides were. “We never heard the word ‘pesticide’ or had a safety training until 4 years later,” says Yesenia. “I assumed it was some kind of fertilizer.”

An estimated 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides are applied to crops annually in the United States. The nation’s 1–2.4 million farmworkers face the greatest threat from the health impacts of these chemicals. Ten to twenty thousand farmworkers are injured by pesticides on the job every year in the US. Short-term effects of pesticide exposures can include skin and eye injuries, nausea, headaches, respiratory problems, and even death. Long-term exposure on the job can increase the risk of serious chronic health problems such as cancer, birth defects, neurological impairments and Parkinson’s disease for farmworkers, their families, and their children.

Advocates who work with farmworkers welcomed news of the proposed rule change. “For too long, the people who pick food for our tables have had to put their own health at risk, and their children’s health at risk, just by going to work every day,” stated Fawn Pattison, Senior Advocate at Toxic Free North Carolina. “We are pleased that the EPA has proposed strengthening this outdated safety standard, and will work together with North Carolina’s farmworkers to ensure that it really does protect the health of farmworker families in our state and across the nation.”

Last week 52 members of Congress, led by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Linda Sanchez of California, urged EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a letter to release the proposed rule, stating that the current agricultural worker protection standard is "limited" and "insufficient" to protect workers from the hazards of handling pesticides.  The same week, California-based Pesticide Action Network submitted a petition to McCarthy to strengthen the Worker Protection Standard, signed by more than 18,000 citizens.

The proposed revisions to the Worker Protection Standard can be viewed on the EPA’s website. The US EPA will be accepting comments from the public on the proposed changes through May.

Contacts:
Fawn Pattison, Toxic Free North Carolina
(919) 833-5333, fawn@toxicfreenc.org

Raviya Ismail, Earthjustice
(202) 745-5221, rismail@earthjustice.org

Dr. Margaret Reeves, Pesticide Action Network North America
(415) 728-0176, mreeves@panna.org

Jeannie Economos, Farmworker Association of Florida
(407) 886-5151, farmerworkerassoc@aol.com

Polar vortex, pesticides, red tape can't stop us!

By Neftali & Yesenia Cuello

Yesenia and Neftali braved brutal cold at the Capitol last week to speak out about pesticide safety.

We started working in the fields of eastern North Carolina when Neftali was 12 years old, and Yesenia was 14. We worked in tobacco, blueberries and strawberries every summer for years. We saw pesticides used nearby and were even exposed to the drift, but never knew what pesticides were.

We never heard the word “pesticide” or had a safety training until 4 years later when we joined NC FIELD and our eyes were opened.

All those years we were being exposed to these things on the job, without any knowledge of what they could do to our health. Now we go out into the fields to meet other children who are working there, photograph them and learn about their lives. We meet teenagers, sometimes kids as young as 8 and 9. Not one youth farmworker we’ve met said they’d ever had a pesticide safety training.

 

NC youth working in sweet potato. Photo by Yesenia Cuello

This is why we have to make our voices heard.

Last week we joined a delegation of farmworkers and youth who traveled to Washington DC. We met with members of Congress and the US EPA to ask them for a strong Worker Protection Standard. People shouldn’t be working with these chemicals without training and safety protections that keep them and their families safe. Kids shouldn’t be working with pesticides at all!

We don’t want unsafe pesticides on our food, and we don’t want other kids to have to work around them or with them like we and our other siblings did. We need a strong Worker Protection Standard that makes the fields and our families safer. If you agree, please make your voice heard, too.

Neftali Cuello serves on Toxic Free NC's Community Leadership Council, and is the Secretary of Poder Juvenil Campesino, the youth group of NC FIELD. Yesenia Cuello is President of PJC and serves on NC FIELD's Board of Directors.

Hungry for real pesticide protections? So are farmworkers.

by Fawn Pattison, Senior Advocate

Each year farms across the United States use over 800 million pounds of pesticides – weed, bug and fungus killing chemicals – to grow our food. Some of those chemicals wind up on the food we eat. Some of those chemicals wind up in our water. These chemicals are associated with a wide array of health problems in humans, from increased cancer risk to learning disabilities.

But more than anyone else, the people affected by pesticides are the people who pick our food: farmworkers. From higher cancer rates to learning disabilities among children, farmworkers suffer the greatest burden of harm from the pesticides used on our food.

This week, farmworkers are demanding a change.
A team of farmworkers from North Carolina and Florida are braving brutally cold weather to travel to Washington DC for meetings with the US Environmental Protection Agency and members of Congress. Members of NC FIELD and the Farmworker Association of Florida have left their jobs and families behind this week to convey their message in Washington: End the delays that have slowed down new pesticide rules for over a decade. It’s time to finally move forward on the Worker Protection Standard (WPS), the set of regulations intended to protect farmworkers from exposure to hazardous pesticides on the job.

The WPS governs things like what safety equipment must be worn, how workers are trained, and what information is provided to workers about the chemicals they’re working with. By any measure, the WPS has failed in its job so far. The WPS allows teenagers to work as pesticide handlers. It is unclear about many requirements, like how soon employers have to provide medical attention in case of an emergency, and whether workers should get written information about the pesticides to which they are exposed.

Why does this matter to the average consumer? Just imagine if the workers in an automotive plant were under-trained and under-informed about the materials they worked with every day. Workers need to be able to report faulty equipment, misused chemicals, stupid mistakes and breaches of the law. When they can’t, we all bear the consequences, in the form of foods, streams and soil contaminated with hazardous chemicals. And the farmworkers themselves suffer most of all.

The decision-makers at the EPA need to hear from the people most directly affected by the political choices they make. If they do, we all reap the benefits.

P.S. Stay tuned to our Twitter and Facebook page to get updates from the team in DC this week!

Safer Food, Farmworkers and Families

by Fawn Pattison, Executive Director

As we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this week, many of us will say a prayer of thanks for the hardworking people who harvest our food. While we enjoy the harvest’s bounty, we also reflect on those who work hard in the fields, facing many dangers and often not earning enough to put food on the table themselves. That’s why Thanksgiving week is also designated as International Food Workers Week.

This week a coalition of farmworker supporters is launching a new campaign to keep farmworkers safe from one of the biggest hazards they face on the job: exposure to toxic pesticides.

Check out ProtectFarmworkers.org and add your name to the petition calling on the federal government to fix the outdated pesticide rules that are failing to keep workers – and us – safe from exposure on the job.

Farmworkers are some of the hardest working, yet least protected, workers in our country. Many laws that protect almost every other worker in the U.S. do not apply to farmworkers.  There is one set of standards, however, that is designed to help protect the health and safety of farmworkers from pesticide exposure: the EPA’s Worker Protection Standard for pesticides. Yet these standards are grossly inadequate for the men, women and children who are on the frontlines of our food production system.

A healthy, safe, and fair food system would benefit us all, protecting the health and serving the economic needs of farmworkers, farmers, rural communities and consumers. Shifting away from reliance on hazardous pesticides is a key step toward this goal. But as long as harmful pesticides are in use, farmworkers need better protections in the field.

Farmworkers have one of the highest rates of chemical exposures among U.S. workers. They are regularly exposed to pesticides throughout their workday in various ways, from mixing or applying pesticides to planting, weeding, harvesting or processing crops. In addition, farmworkers often live in or near treated fields, and harmful pesticides can drift into their homes. Health impacts can include both acute poisonings and long-term, chronic health effects such as various cancers, Parkinsons’ Disease, asthma, birth defects and neurological harms, including developmental delays and learning disabilities. Farmworkers’ children are particularly at risk.

Current regulations have failed to protect farmworkers and their families from pesticide exposure and harms. California farmworker poisoning data illustrate the extent of this nationwide problem, reporting hundreds of poisoning cases each year. Hundreds more — possibly thousands — go unreported due to workers’ fear of job loss and/or retaliation. Further exacerbating the problem is the fact that many states have weak or nonexistent systems for reporting poisoning incidents.

After more than a decade of broken promises and delays, EPA is now poised to strengthen the rules protecting farmworkers; but the agency needs to do so now and it needs to get it right. EPA must issue revisions to strengthen the Worker Protection Standard before the end of the year. The new regulations should include the following key improvements:

• A minimum age of 18 to work with pesticides. Currently teens as young as 16 may work mixing, loading and applying these highly toxic chemicals.
• Better and more frequent training on health risks of pesticides.
• Worker access to timely information about the use, location, and hazards of specific pesticides on the farm where they work.
• Special protections for pesticide handlers.
• Improved enforcement of safety standards at the state level.

The farmworkers who harvest our food need protection from toxic pesticides. Safe fields go hand in hand with safe food. Add your voice and learn more at ProtectFarmworkers.org.

The Bees are speaking: It's time to act

By Jean Strandberg & Fawn Pattison

Bombus terrestris, the beloved bumblebee

This October, Toxic Free NC is focusing on our friends, the pollinators. Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard that domestic honeybee populations have plummeted in recent years. Farmers in North Carolina and across the US face a dramatic shortage of hives to pollinate their crops. Nearly half the managed beehives in NC have been lost since the mid-1980’s.

But did you know that wild pollinators are even worse off? While their populations are hard to track, biologists estimate that wild pollinators have suffered a 95% population decline in NC in the same time period. New research shows that wild pollinators are even more important to our food supply than domesticated bees. A recent study looking at 40 different crops across the globe showed that wild pollinators are twice as effective as honeybees in their pollination efforts. This is in part due to the variety of pollination techniques used by wild pollinators, as well as a tendency to cross-pollinate (honeybees usually pollinate within a single plant). 

We must act now to stop the pollinator collapse, or we will be very hungry people before long. We're already seeing the effects of fewer pollinators on the planet. Yields in crops that do not require pollination are growing at a much faster rate than those that do, and more and more farmers are finding it necessary to rent hives from around the country to ensure the success of their crops. Among crops requiring pollination are some of our favorite foods: cucumbers, almonds, blueberries, watermelon, apples, strawberries, melons and peaches all require pollination. If we fail to address the causes of these losses, we may soon have to give up many of the foods we love.

But many voices are telling us not to act. Pesticide makers argue loudly that their chemicals aren't to blame. They pay troops of scientists to create data that distract our attention from the harmful effects of agrochemicals on bees, butterflies and birds. But agrochemicals like the widely used class of insecticide, neonicotinoids, are strongly linked to declines in honey and bumblebee populations. There are plenty of other contributing factors besides pesticides, of course.

Hang around any beekeeper, and you’re sure to hear about the Varroa mite’s attack on their hives, introducing RNA viruses that disrupt hive function and can eventually lead to colony collapse. Climate change has been linked to an increasing incongruity between when bees are active and when flowers are in bloom. Pesticides, pathogens, climate change, decreased crop diversity and habitat destruction all play a part, individually, and in combination. 

But having many factors involved is no excuse to sit back and let a disaster happen. We must act now to fix what we can! The overuse of pesticides is a huge contributor to these declines. Pesticides kill beneficial insects and pollinators like bees and butterflies that are necessary to provide a healthy ecosystem where we can thrive. Pollination is required for three-quarters of global food crops, and one of the things we can do right now to conserve these essential pollinators is to use fewer pesticides.

The US Department of Agriculture, and our state Commissioner of Agriculture should be acting fast to promote farm technology that protects pollinators: More organic farming, more Integrated Pest Management, ending the use of pesticides most highly toxic to bees, and creating incentives for farmers to diversify crops and provide more pollinator habitat. The pollinator collapse is a man-made disaster, and one that we can stop if we choose to. Let's choose wisely.

Baby steps won't get us there

Photo by Dermot O'Halloran via Flickr

by Fawn Pattison, Executive Director

We welcomed the news of a bi-partisan compromise bill on toxics reform with open arms. Finally! A bill to overhaul our failed national toxics law! With sponsors from both parties! The Chemical Safety Improvement Act is truly a political breakthrough, and worth celebrating.

But reading (and re-reading) the bill's 127 pages was a disappointment. While there are some really important steps forward - such as requiring proof of safety before new chemicals come onto the market, and finally giving the EPA authority to restrict chemicals found to be hazardous - the Chemical Safety Improvement Act won't get the job done.

Simply put, the bill lacks priorities. Any legislation to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act needs to get its priorities straight:

• Prioritize the children and pregnant women we're supposed to be watching out for. The bill should direct EPA to focus on "vulnerable populations." That's EPA-speak for the people whose  toxic exposures matter most.
• Prioritize the high-hazard chemicals. The bill needs to spell out deadlines and expectations for EPA so that they know what to focus on, and when. Put the worst chemicals at the top of the priority list. Without priorities and deadlines, it will be very difficult for EPA to create a program that works, or secure the resources to carry it out.
• Prioritize accountability. States should be able to hold the federal government accountable if they're not getting the job done under a new toxics law. The Chemical Safety Improvement Act puts too many restrictions on states' ability to act, even before EPA takes action on a single chemical. 
• Prioritize health. When EPA orders a ban or phaseout of a chemical because of its tremendous risks for human health, there should be no cost-benefit analysis for action. If a chemical is too dangerous to be on the market, that should be the end of the story. Requiring a cost-benefit analysis can actually deter innovation, since maintaining the status quo is almost always the easier way. Health and safety should be the only factors EPA considers when a chemical rises to the top of the priority list.

Baby steps are beautiful to see, but our priorities require some superhero-sized strides. With over 80,000 chemicals in the marketplace, and soaring rates of chronic health conditions like autism and childhood cancers, we can't afford to toddle slowly forward. We're counting on our Senators to get this bill's priorities in order.

Youth taking action: We’ve done our part, now do yours EPA!

by Lynne Walter, Associate Director

On May 21, 2013, my co-worker Anna and I had the opportunity to speak with all of the 9^th graders at Carolina Friends School in Durham, NC, about migrant farmworkers, their exposures to pesticides, and youth migrant farmworkers working in the fields … and as someone who went to a Quaker college, it was really fantastic interacting with these young Friends school students!

After we all watched and talked about the documentary "Overworked and UnderSpray: Young Farm Workers' Pesticide Stories", the students wrote some really incredible letters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ask the EPA to release the Worker Protection Standard (WPS), the federal rules that are designed to protect workers from pesticides on the job (FYI—the WPS dictates what employers need to tell workers about the pesticides they’re using, when safety equipment should be provided, and how to handle exposures when they happen).

The release of the new WPS has been substantially delayed, and the Carolina Friends School students wrote letters asking the EPA to end the WPS release delay, why this was important to them, and why they felt farmworkers should be safe from pesticide exposures.

One of my favorite parts of one of the letters was: “I’ve done my part, Mr. Jones [writing the letter]. Now the EPA must do theirs."

These forty-two 9^th graders and their three teachers were getting ready for a service learning trip to the Episcopal Farmworker Ministry in Newton Grove, NC, the following week. We talked about what Toxic Free NC does and the risks farmworkers face from pesticides, particularly the risks and challenges young migrant farmworkers in North Carolina experience.

The Carolina Friends School students had very thoughtful questions and comments about the challenges farmworkers, especially young farmworkers, face regarding pesticide exposure in the fields, and wrote amazing letters to the EPA. I really enjoyed seeing another generation get even more involved in farmworker advocacy!

I'll take my superfood without the side of malathion, please.

Photo by mystuart via Flickr

by Fawn Pattison, Executive Director

Is it blueberry season yet?

As soon as spring starts to poke its nose out, I start daydreaming about the delicious things I'll be eating from my garden and from the farmer's market this summer. Chief among my food fantasies: Blueberries.

What's not to love about a blueberry? They're small, cute, delicious, packed with vitamins and antioxidants, and they grow like crazy here in North Carolina. Here's something I don't love: the side-dressing of pesticides that come with conventionally-grown berries.

I got a jarring reminder of why I buy organic berries at yesterday's meeting of the NC Pesticide Board.

The Board was hearing the case of a farmer from Bladen county who had violated pesticide rules by sending workers in to harvest blueberries too soon after a pesticide application. The grower had applied a pesticide formula that included malathion - a notorious nerve poison - and had the berries harvested before the required 24-hour pre-harvest interval was up. One worker was hospitalized with suspected pesticide illness (though the exact cause could not be confirmed). The Ag Department's inspector came out several days later and collected samples. Those samples showed malathion residue. The grower was fined $800.

Just a moment. About those berries... Board member Benson Kirkman asked if the blueberries could have been on a farm stand for sale the same day.

Yes.

Uncomfortable silence.

The berries were in fact harvested too early. But only by a few hours. Just 24 hours after an application of pesticides that could still be detected several days later - pesticides that may even have made workers sick - EPA rules allow those same berries to be harvested and put up for sale.

That's why blueberries landed on the "Dirty Dozen" pesticide list in 2010, and it's also a very good reason to buy organic blueberries this summer.

Take Action! US EPA dragging its feet on farm worker pesticide protections

by Fawn Pattison 

"The laws are very important, because they are the only way that the rules for each pesticide will be respected."
– Migrant farm worker, Harnett County, NC

Pesticides are one of the leading dangers that workers face when they go into the fields to harvest our food. The US EPA sets the standards for the safe handling of toxic pesticides in the field.

Unfortunately, the EPA has been dragging its feet for over a decade on new rules designed to strengthen basic pesticide protections and training requirements for farm workers.

We can’t let another growing season arrive without taking action. Join us in asking US EPA Assistant Administrator Jim Jones to release the new Worker Protection Standard rules. Check out our action page to send your message now.

Making positive change in 2013

by Ana Duncan Pardo, Communications Coordinator

We've heard a lot of worrying about what kind of impact the new state legislature will have. We agree that this will likely be a tough year in NC for the environment and social justice, but we definitely aren't throwing in the towel!

Last week, our Executive Director shared Toxic Free NC's strategy for pushing forward despite a less friendly legislature. This week, I want to share Toxic Free NC’s resolutions for how we’ll continue making positive change in 2013: 

1. We will teach more people than ever about organic gardening and organize with them for local food policy change.

One of the things we're most excited about this year is our new Organic Is for Everyone program about food access. We’re so excited about getting our hands into the dirt and helping people across North Carolina grow and eat more organic food!

We are looking forward to working with communities in NC to grow more organic food, and to push for policy changes at the city and county level that pave the way for thriving, sustainable local foodsheds.

2) We'll continue pushing for common sense reform of federal toxic chemicals regulation.

Over the past two years, we’ve collected thousands of petitions and galvanized the environmental and health communities in the movement for safer chemicals policy. We will organize even more advocates to meet with NC Congressional delegates. We’ll share tips and tools to help you to be a savvy consumer. And we’ll keep pushing our message about the need for federal toxic chemical reform out through the media.

3) We will work with NC's largest child care chains to help them switch to safer pest control in child care centers.

By educating the leadership of the biggest companies in the NC child care industry, we expect to reduce tens of thousands of North Carolina children's exposure to toxic pesticides by helping them switch to least toxic Integrated Pest Management.

4) We will ensure that farm workers' voices are heard on the issues that affect them.

We spent much of last year collecting farm workers' ideas for improving workplace standards for pesticide safety. This year, we'll be helping to bring North Carolina farm workers' own words into the national conversation about laws that directly impact their health and safety.

Our success depends on you. Effective community organizing means that the people who really care about these issues lead the way. How do you plan to keep making positive change in 2013? Share your ideas with us on Facebook!

Thank you for being an ally we can depend on. Toxic Free NC is stronger because you're with us.

Here's to the New Year!