Advocates for Farm Laborers Seek a Ban on Hand Weeding

The sight of farm workers weeding in the field, bent over rows of strawberries, carrots and lettuce, soon could become a thing of the past if farm labor groups have their way.

The California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is considering a request by worker advocates and labor unions to ban all hand weeding in commercial agriculture. Growers insist that the practice is vital to many of the state’s fruit and vegetable crops, especially organic produce, which cannot be farmed with chemical herbicides.

If adopted, it would be the first such ban in agriculture.

Regulating weeding is not without precedent. In 1975, the use of short-handled hoes for cutting weeds and thinning crops was outlawed in California because the bent position required was found to cause permanent back injury for many laborers.

But the law didn’t specifically prevent workers from pulling weeds by hand or using a short knife, which many employ today.

That is why the labor groups are pushing Cal/OSHA to require that state workers use tools at least 4 feet long to eliminate weeds.

“Agriculture companies are just using hand weeding as a loophole to evade the long-standing ban on the use of short-handled tools,” said Mike Meuter, an attorney with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, which has joined the United Farm Workers of America and the California Labor Federation in urging reform.

As the acreage of row crops has expanded across the state and the practice of hand weeding has increased, Meuter said, he and other CRLA members have been hearing more frequent reports of back injuries. However, he could not say exactly how many injuries have resulted from the practice in recent years.

Farmers acknowledge that maintaining crops is difficult, physically demanding work. But “hand weeding is essential to agriculture, just like hand harvesting,” said Mike Webb of the Western Growers Assn., an Irvine-based agriculture trade group.

Losing the ability to hand weed their crops would mean increased use of chemical herbicides and smaller harvests -- and profits -- as tools could damage tightly spaced crops such as carrots, celery and lettuce, growers say.

“The weeds grow up right next to the plant,” Webb said. “The only way to get in and pull those is by hand.”

A ban would be most burdensome for organic growers, who by definition can’t use chemicals to keep weeds in check. “It would be hard,” said Bill Brammer, a San Diego County organic fruit and vegetable farmer. “We wouldn’t be able to keep up with weeds.”

Brammer said he would prefer that labor groups instead seek a limit on the number of hours farm workers are allowed to perform such taxing work. In his case, he already rotates crews so workers don’t have to spend more than two hours down on their hands and knees.

Yet, said Meuter, for every farm owner such as Brammer concerned about their workers’ risk of injury, there are others who require their farmhands to spend most of the day stooped over weeds.

Cal/OSHA recently held public meetings on the matter to collect information from growers and labor groups. The agency could make a decision in the next few months.

But Meuter warned that if restrictions on hand weeding are not implemented, CRLA and others could seek legislative relief by introducing language banning hand weeding in an Assembly bill this summer.

“We need to achieve the protection of the workers’ backs and economic efficiency,” Meuter said.