By Chloe Boehm
Palo
Verde is a verdant tropical forest filled with families of capuchin monkeys,
skittish peccaries and mystical jabirus. However, directly adjacent to this
veritable paradise are endless acres of sugarcane plantations. Just walking
near these fields gives you a dizzying head rush of Roundup® herbicide, which
we observed unprotected workers applying by the gallon. When we asked workers
about their perceived occupational hazards, they responded in an unexpectedly
nonchalant manner - they were not worried about their frequent contact with
weed killer or sun overexposure. We saw the workers reaching into barrels of
Roundup® with bare hands only to reach next for a sugary energy drink.
Before our trip to the sugarcane
plantation, we had a discussion about the social determinants of health,
especially as they pertain to Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Origin (CKDu)
in sugarcane workers. CKDu afflicts manual laborers throughout Mesoamerica,
particularly in the agricultural sector. As we examined potential causes of
CKDu, we discussed how the undocumented status of many migrant workers in Costa
Rica (even in this country’s universal healthcare system) contributes to an
inability to advocate for their own occupational health status. Without the
political autonomy to mobilize and promote their biomedical agenda,
undocumented sugarcane workers are unable to join the dominant biosocial
community. The social determinants of health would lead us to believe that
exclusion from this biosociality has an eventual pathological effect, manifested
in the high prevalence of CKDu.
These workers are subject to not
only biosocial alienation but also economic exclusion. Manuel, a former
sugarcane worker and a co-founder of the plantations in Guanacaste province,
explained how the plantations have transitioned from a former cooperative
between farmers to an industry-owned conglomerate. Manuel explained that the old
cooperative raised money for the town’s school system, and that the school has
had less money since the buy-out. I related this seemingly small structural
change to the larger systemic shifts in global agriculture, shifts that often
serve to further marginalize and disenfranchise poor rural farmers.
The sugar produced also exemplifies
the movement away from family farming practicing to the divisive monoculture
system. In many ways, I see sugar as a catalyst for mass production. As a
highly laborious crop that requires inputs from many agricultural and
industrial settings, it produces a product that cheaply fuels industrial
bodies. As we saw at the plantation, workers were powered by caffeinated,
sugary beverages – a manifestation of
the capitalist labor created by the industrial sugar plantation. The relatively
recent mass production of sugar highlights the role it plays in the modern
industrial diet.
My experience at the sugar
plantation has given me a fresh interest in occupational health and industrial
agricultural practices. Global health equity remains a lofty goal, but
recognizing structural inequities as they occur and the powerful industrial
networks they reinforce can help expose the biosocial vulnerabilities
associated with marginalized populations.
Photo
Caption: Manuel explains the history of the sugarcane plantations in the
Guanacaste Area (Photo by Sam Cothran)
Photo
Caption: Bright-yellow Roundup herbicide (Photo by Sam Cothran)
