Many people choose organic food in order to protect themselves and their families from exposure to pesticides. But choosing organic also means helping to create a healthier food system for everyone, from farm to table. Far too often, discussions about pesticides in the food system exclude the men, women, and children who plant, tend, and harvest our food.

The millions of farmworkers who are the backbone of our food system are routinely exposed to high levels of toxic pesticides in the fields where they work and in the communities where they live. They can be exposed at levels hundreds of times greater than consumers’ exposures to pesticides.