The Injustices Faced by Sugar Cane Harvesters

By Gilbert Wermeling

“You should drink some water.” On the first day we arrived in Costa Rica our professors told us how important it would be to stay hydrated. Twice more, during course safety meetings, we were reminded to keep a full water bottle with us, especially when in the field. Their warnings were not unjustified. I find myself drinking the equivalent of ten, eight-ounce glasses of water each day. This leads me to wonder about people whose daily jobs are much more demanding than mine, a field biology student. How much water should physical laborers, like sugar cane harvesters, who toil for hours under direct sunlight be drinking? Apparently, much more than they are given access to. 

Saturday morning, January 27^th, my classmates and I all clambered into an OTS vehicle which brought us to a sugar cane plantation on the edge of Palo Verde National Park. Our professor began to tell us about the sugar cane: its taxonomy, why growth conditions are better on the pacific slope, common pests. We learned about the cultivation of the sugarcane: the difficulty of applying herbicides, the dispersal of Warfarin to control rat infestations in the fields, the controlled burns which eradicate weedy vegetation and other pests before a harvest day. At this point one student asked the professor when the burns finished, as the field behind us was in the process of being harvested. The professor responded that burns are done during the night, although they often overlap with the work shift of the harvesters. “You see those workers,” he pointed across the field, “that is not their skin color. They are covered with soot.” 

We all took a moment to register this. Our professor continued. Besides daily coverings of soot, the workers frequently do not have appropriate water breaks, if they have water at all. Some resort to drinking from the unsafe irrigation canals. Most go without. As some workers make the equivalent of only 4 U.S. cents per meter of sugar cane harvested, breaks are a luxury they cannot afford. Workers, earning several dollars a day, also have to pay for their own food and lodging while working on site.

And what happens to a worker should they fall ill? Costa Rica has one of the best universal health care systems in Central America. However, sugar cane harvesters are often from Nicaragua. This should mean that the company that hires the workers stipulates health insurance in their contracts, but wily sub-contractors frequently manage to omit these details in many workers’ contracts. The result is a large number of Nicaraguan workers with lung disease and chronic kidney disease inundating public hospitals with no option for paying their medical bills. 

I know that this situation is not unique to migrant sugarcane harvesters in Costa Rica. It exists in the United States and around the world. We all need to be aware of how the food we eat every day is cultivated. We all need to educate ourselves about the injustices migrant workers face. And we all need to speak out about these injustices.