The effect of agricultural land retirement on pesticide use.

Agricultural land retirement generates risks and opportunities for ecological communities and ecosystem services. Of particular interest is the influence of retired cropland on agricultural pests and pesticides, as these uncultivated lands may directly shift the distribution of pesticide use and may serve as a source of pests and/or natural enemies for remaining active croplands. Few studies have investigated how agricultural pesticide use is impacted by land retirement. Here we couple field-level crop and pesticide data from over 200,000 field-year observations and 15 years of production in Kern County, CA, USA to investigate: 1) how much pesticide use and applied toxicity are avoided annually due to the direct effects of retirement, 2) whether surrounding retirement drives pesticide use on active cropland and what types of pesticides are most influenced, and 3) whether the effect of surrounding retirement on pesticide use is dependent on the age or revegetation cover on retired parcels. Our results suggest about 100 kha are idle in any given year, which equates to about 1.3-3 M kg of pesticide active ingredients foregone. We also find retired lands lead to a small increase in total pesticide use on nearby active lands even after controlling for a combination of crop-, farmer-, region- and year-specific heterogeneity. More specifically, the results suggest a 10 % increase in retired lands nearby results in about a 0.6 % increase in pesticides, with the effect sizes increasing as a function of the duration of continuous fallowing, but decreasing or even reversing sign at high levels of revegetation cover. Our results suggest increasingly prevalent agricultural land retirement can shift the distribution of pesticides based on what crops are retired and what active crops remain nearby.

"We All Have a Job to Do in This World, It's up to Us": Farmworker and Farmer Mental Health in a Rural US-Mexico Border Region.

Improving mental health outcomes for agricultural populations is dependent on understanding the unique farming related stressors in context of the local culture and community. This study was designed to assess the prevalence of stressors and mental health risks among farmers and farmworkers in a rural, medically underserved US-Mexico border region. Of 135 study respondents, 55.6% (n = 18) farmers had clinical depression symptomatology based on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies depression screening scale (CES-D) and 40.2% (n = 117) farmworkers had stress levels that pose significant mental health risks based on the Migrant Farmworker Stress Inventory. Farmworker females were 2.3 times more likely to have a score of clinical concern. Results provide an understanding of the distinct sources of stress for both farmers and farmworkers and the mental health challenges across the industry. With an understanding that suicide is the third leading cause of injury death in Imperial County and depression associated with an increased risk of suicidality, the agricultural workforce in Imperial County is particularly vulnerable. Local farm organizations, employers, and community organizations can help increase mental health access, acceptability, and availability to achieve greater safety and health in the region's largest workforce.

"We left the crop there lying in the field": Agricultural worker experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic in a rural US-Mexico border region.

California agricultural workers are predominately Latino/a, are medically underserved, and reside in larger households, placing them at elevated COVID-19 risk at work and at home. While some research has examined COVID-19 among agricultural workers in the interior of the United States, little research exists on experiences of COVID-19 along the US-Mexico border. Grounded in resilience thinking, this study aims to understand how agricultural workers navigated their heightened risk to COVID-19 at work and at home, and made use of available resources in the context of a bi-national community. Our study utilized qualitative interviews with 12 agricultural workers to understanding the COVID-19 experiences of resident and daily migrant agricultural workers in Imperial County, California, located along the US-Mexico border. Findings suggest that agricultural workers faced significant impacts and risks at work (work stoppages, stress about bringing COVID-19 home to family) and at home (contracting COVID-19, loss of friends and family, and mental health challenges). Agricultural workers and their employers often implemented COVID-19 precautions such as social distancing measures, personal protective equipment, hand washing and hand sanitizers, and isolation. Many agricultural workers did access testing resources on either side of the US-Mexico border and worked with US-based Spanish-speaking community-based organizations to register for vaccine appointments. To better support agricultural workers and their employers in the future, we recommend the following: 1. Prioritize agricultural workplace conditions to increase agricultural worker physical and mental health, 2. Extend public health services into agricultural work sites of transit and the workplace, and 3. Lastly, trusted Spanish-speaking community-based organizations can play a critical role in public health outreach.

Work-Life Stress during the Coronavirus Pandemic among Latina Farmworkers in a Rural California Region.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the type and severity of stressors experienced among Latina farmworkers during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A survey containing the Migrant Farmworker Stress Inventory was administered to 77 female-identifying Latina farmworkers working in a US-Mexico border region. A sub-sample of five participants participated in key-informant interviews. Data collection occurred in Summer 2021. RESULTS: Nearly 40% of Latina farmworkers reported high stress levels indicative of clinical mental health risks. Health and safety concerns and experienced stressors identified included visible substance abuse and poor bathroom conditions at the field site, language barriers, and balancing work and home life demands. CONCLUSIONS: Latina farmworkers have unique health and safety needs, and COVID-19 has contributed to the experienced stressors. Understanding the familial and working environment sources of stress specific to female agriculture workers is imperative to implementing culturally and gender-responsive strategies to better support the health and safety of farming populations in future pandemics.

Occupational Stressors and Access to COVID-19 Resources among Commuting and Residential Hispanic/Latino Farmworkers in a US-Mexico Border Region.

Hispanic/Latino and migrant workers experience high degrees of occupational stress, constitute most of California's agricultural workforce, and were among the most impacted populations by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, relatively little is known about the occupational stress experienced by farmworkers who commute daily between the US and Mexico. Occupational stress is considered an imbalance between the demands at work and the capabilities to respond in the context of the workforce. The goal of this study is to determine the type and severity of stressors in daytime and resident farmworkers and how COVID-19 vaccination status contributes to these stressors. Interviews containing the Migrant Farmworker Stress Inventory (MSWSI) were administered to a sample of 199 Hispanic/Latino farmworkers in Imperial County, a multi-billion-dollar agriculture sector in the US. Principal factor analysis differentiated latent factors in the MFSWI. Simple linear regression models and correlations identified associations between MFWSI scores and sample characteristics. The MFWSI reduced to five stressor domains: Health and Well-Being Vulnerabilities, Inadequate Standards of Living/Unknown Conditions of Living, Working Conditions, Working Environment, and Language Barriers. Approximately 40 percent of the respondents reported significant stress levels, with foreign-born (p = 0.014) and older respondents (p = 0.0415) being more likely to experience elevated stress regardless of their nighttime residence. We found that Spanish-language COVID-19 outreach might have been particularly effective for workers who reported high stress from English-language communication (p = 0.001). Moreover, our findings point to the importance of worker and human rights to mitigate the high-stress foreign-born workers who live in Mexico and the US experience.

Mobile phone use is associated with higher smallholder agricultural productivity in Tanzania, East Africa.

Mobile phone use is increasing in Sub-Saharan Africa, spurring a growing focus on mobile phones as tools to increase agricultural yields and incomes on smallholder farms. However, the research to date on this topic is mixed, with studies finding both positive and neutral associations between phones and yields. In this paper we examine perceptions about the impacts of mobile phones on agricultural productivity, and the relationships between mobile phone use and agricultural yield. We do so by fitting multilevel statistical models to data from farmer-phone owners (n = 179) in 4 rural communities in Tanzania, controlling for site and demographic factors. Results show a positive association between mobile phone use for agricultural activities and reported maize yields. Further, many farmers report that mobile phone use increases agricultural profits (67% of respondents) and decreases the costs (50%) and time investments (47%) of farming. Our findings suggest that there are opportunities to target policy interventions at increasing phone use for agricultural activities in ways that facilitate access to timely, actionable information to support farmer decision making.