My name is Jan Crowder and I am with the Department of Agriculture and I am here to introduce your lecturers on this morning's session on farm safety. I'd like to introduce Susan Jones. She's a registered nurse with the Department of Nursing, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green Kentucky. Also, we have Ann Johnston. She's a senior lecturer, Key Center for Women's Health in Society with the University of Melbourne in Australia. Ladies.

Thank you Jan, it's indeed a pleasure to be with you this morning and we were just taking Ann and I. I think our group is small enough and we would certainly like to know more about you. So if we could just go around the room and if you could share your name and your location and your interest in farm safety we would appreciate that. Want to start. Our friend in Nebraska, and we've already established a bond, right? A mutual acquaintance.

(Audience participation, not at a microphone)

I am Mary Frances Dorman and I am also from the University of Kentucky, the Department of preventive medicine. I am a health educator and registered nurse and very interested in family health and farm health.

(Audience participation, not a microphone)

Actually the topic this morning is not specifically farm safety, but it's more how do you organize a community to address farm safety and I will describe a specific project that occurred in our community, preventing occupational injuries and disease in an agricultural community and this is a model that's based on empowerment of farm women and how appropriate it is for this conference I think. Just to give you an idea particularly for our inner nest, and old friends, where Kentucky is located. You may think that we're the bluegrass state, but it's not always blue, I will assure you. We do have houses through so most people identify the state of Kentucky with those two ideas or concepts.

The Kentucky partnership for farm family health and safety used the community-based organization. To give you a little history, in 1992, the Kellogg funded twelve projects nationwide to address agricultural health and safety. There was an exhibit down stairs its called Ashnet and some of you may have seen that and picked up a brochure that describes each of those organizations and projects. There was one in New York for example that addressed stress and daily farmers, there was one in Nebraska that Suzanne Vanessa that we were talking about earlier was directing. On the west coast in California, Florida and so forth. We were fortunate enough to receive one of those grants. The grant was awarded to the University of Kentucky which happens to be in Lexington and they do other things there, other than play basketball.

OK. In the department of preventive medicine the college of medicine, the grant was implemented in south central Kentucky and Bowling Green where I teach nursing and where Norma is there working on the farm everyday, right Norma? That gives you a little idea, there were two universities involved, so the grant was awarded to the university of Kentucky and then implemented in a rural area where I live in Bowling Green Kentucky south central Kentucky. The nature of the grant was to create a self-sustaining coalition of existing and also new community-based organizations to address agricultural health and safety issues. I will tell you that at the beginning of the project, we interviewed several people, health care providers, extension and businesses and so forth throughout the community and everyone at that point said, I have no idea where I would, there's no organizations that's addressing and health and safety, but probably if I had a question of would go to the extension office and realize this was in the early 90s. We went to the extension office and they said no, we don't have that much material on and health and safety. So the point I am making was at that particular time, no one in our area was addressing and health and safety.

The purpose of the grant was number 1, to develop and implement this community-based program to strengthen the role of farm women in the prevention of illnesses and injuries in south central Kentucky. And at the same time to empower farm women to take action on their family farms to reduce risk to their families' health and safety. Those were the two purposes that guided our interventions. Why did we select farm women, all of these other Kellogg projects had slightly different focuses like stress and dairy farmers or like maybe incorporating more information concerning propositions for and health and safety, that was the Georgia project. But our project was farm women and why did we select farm women? Well we thought and conceptually in a theoretical basis for the grand project, for the grant application, was that there was strong social networks that did exist among farm women and that women are the health officers within the family unit. You know it's usually the woman that knows when the children have their immunizations and when people need to go the doctor and we have to hound our husbands and so forth, so therefore, that was the basis for this grant.

To give you an idea of one county where the grant was implemented, there are approximately 2000 farms and small family farms still. Now we do have some large cooperative farming but, primarily, small families farms of like 120 acres each that average, remember that's an average income that we have farmers that make much more than that like $12,000 a year. And we certainly have diversified farming in our area. Some of the characteristics of farming in the area is that if this is a non regulatory organization. People there view farming as an invaluable occupation we do recognize its danger it is of course the small farms are exempt from OSHA regulations. We have increased technology and that increases the hazards and many of farmers, and I can say this because I come from generations of farmers, they're very independent and they accept these hazards as just a way of life. That's just part of living is the hazards associated with farming. We also know that farmers in our area when the weather cooperates there is no limit to the work day, we're out at sometimes all night but certainly 4 a.m. and go until the work is done and it's usually never done, so therefore, they go continuously during the work season. They often work by themselves and this certain has implications difficult to change jobs if they do experience some type of occupational injury or illness because farming is their way of life. Many of the work is done by the entire family on the farms and of course the hazards are dependent upon the diversity in the farming we have many hazards that occur on our farms. This is an example, we do grow a lot of tobacco in Kentucky and this is an example of the entire family that's participating and a recent activity of our farms which is setting or planting tobacco. Frequently, children are involved in the family chores this happens to be one of the ladies that worked with the project. He daughter feeding one of their daily cattle.

We also as I said tobacco and I'll give you an overview of some of our commodities. Tobacco course presents very specific health risks such as grain tobacco falls from tobacco barns, cuts from the spears and so forth. We have daily cattle in the area, beef cattle, looks a little ferocious this early in the morning doesn't he? Swine which happens to be my love. Since we can not talk about Kentucky without mentioning out horse, and also grain and we have hay and so forth.

So, when the project or the grant was funded in 1992, I was asked to serve as Regional Coordinator. I have taught nursing for a number of years at Western Kentucky University. I come primarily from a critical background an dunatil the last five years and I had the opportunity to become involved and I certainly did not hesitate, number one, my critical years told me that when farmers come into the hospital frequently, I had seen that they frequently did not have all their digits. That's one thing that you'll notice. Some digits will be missing. Some cannot hear, that was another observation I had made and they frequently have more problems from respiratory from inhalation; of the dust and the grain and so forth throughout the years plus I just happen to love farmers. I happen to be married to someone that's involved in agriculture so I can't get away from it. Our son recently graduated from Oklahoma State. I think someone's back in the back from Oklahoma. He returned to the family farm, therefore, I think I am embedded in agriculture.

But in 1993, this was the retreat we recruited 12 women throughout the county and in one county, these women represented not only diverse commodities, we did not want all grain farmers, or all swine farmers, all commodities were represented from the county in 12 geographical sectors. The women were selected based on their application of having positive forces within the community they were called community spark plugs. And I think Norma certainly fits that category. They had the ability to get things done and if you want someone to go around and raise money, or collect items for an auction, you need to get people like Norma Corn. We did meet the first time in 1993, and formed that was the first meeting or the coalition. The partnership was not only for farm women, but one of our focuses was to reach out to the community and to form partnerships at three levels. Farm families, farm women, also reaching to health care providers and local businesses and organizations. We have worked with Southern State, Farm Bureau for example, and businesses and 4-H and FFA. Kentucky partnership has been in existence, we are not a not for profit organization, we've been in existence for five years.

And I would just like to briefly share with you the achievements some of our achievements, the barriers that we've encountered along the way and our plans for sustain ability and how we have maintained ourselves throughout the years and some plans for the future. I do think the problem is one that you can take back to your own community, in fact, it is being replicated in Texas and in Louisiana and there is a meeting the last part of this month I think, beginning discussions in Florida A&M. As far as the achievements, there were 12 basic goals for the original proposal so this like a report card that I am sharing with you which increases one's anxiety somewhat. Number one goal was to establish and maintain a community-based coalition and that involved recruitment and maintaining The women to direct the program. We also through the women mobilized over 50 community agencies, schools, clubs, businesses to support the project. We have learned that if you ask people will give primarily, particularly their resources and they are concerned about farm safety in the community. We've used table top displays and we also have had three I guess annual farm family fall festivals or winter festivals at one time in which we bring in the community and have educational displays. Health screening and so forth. Take some organization to get to pull that off, but it certainly has been a positive activity within the community.

The second goal was that we did a survey with assistants from the University from Kentucky early on in the project and that survey consisted of 200 as far as the sample, 200 farm women in one county and 135 farm women in Sumson County, which is the county south of one. And it was the results of that survey where the women identified what problems they were the most concerned about. That actually guided the activities of the project and also with the educational materials that we prepared in the form of photo novels and so forth that I will share in a minute. We did incorporate the grant proposal said that we would incorporate as a not for profit organization and that certainly has positives and negatives and I'll share some of those when we get to the barriers. In the effort of doing the incorporation as a not for profit organization, I think there is a buzz up here, I think I am going to be shot or something. It's a camera rewinding, you know that noise, but I wasn't sure at first. To incorporate as a not for profit organization required that we come up with a mission statement by laws, of course brochures, establish membership levels and we added a stake holder board that is still in place and we use as an advisory board. And of course we have people throughout the state on that advisory board, Farm Bureau representation, extension, bankers, attorneys, CPA, we try to get those people on our stake holder board that we know we need their services for example and I will highly recommend that for those of you that are going home and creating some type of organization. We do publish monthly, this was bi-monthly for a period of time and with feed-back we are now doing quarterly newsletters and before you leave today, I have a sample copy of the last newsletter that I want to make sure I get one to each of you. We want to build bridges with health care providers so we've had one and plan another continuing education programs for health care providers in which we address agri ability, trauma that occurs in farming for health care provide we thought that was very important and it was successful. I think someone in physical therapy was here, yes, and we has several physical therapists that continuing program. We Did provide a three day course reaching again to health care providers in a farm medic rescue program. Originally, certified eighteen local EMS rescue providers or personnel and they are now offering the courses that are themselves providers and they've trained additional rescue personnel and rescuing people from farm accidents, it's certainly different for example rescuing someone from a tractor turn over that you so willingly shared your experience than it is from an automobile accident. This is just an example of a photograph from our farm rescue program.

Number 7, things that the women were asked to document actions taken on their farms to reduce risks. By establishing local work plans, you know what are they doing out there on their own farms to make their own farms safer? I can share a couple strategies and there were other things but, one lady for example, and this seems so simple, but it was so important and it's been used by other people in fact it's been published in a Georgia newsletter on farm safety. She was concerned that with a two year old when her husband came to the farm after applying pesticides there was never, and he always cleaned his pants, and so forth outside but there was never any soap at the spigot, you know you put soap there and it's always gone. She took a nylon stocking and tied the soap in it and tied it to the little spigot so the soap would always be there. Very simple invention. Another thing that one of the farm ladies did, we had a sound meter and she went through her own farm and determined where the decibels were the highest and she took thin canisters, in fact we made about 1000 plus of these, am I right, and put hearing protection in these canisters with a little string to tie them and appropriate where the noise was the highest. And she added a note here that said please use these, I would like for you to hear me say I love you. So I mean, it is kind of mushy, sounds like valentines perhaps, but it was effective and I had the opportunity to ask Mark, her husband, did it make a difference. And he said, would it not to you if everywhere you look, you saw those. So that's a simple thing that was done, but yet it certainly had an impact and it could at different sites, not just at her farm.

We purchased with the grant, some technology video cameras, sound meters to detect farm hazards. The whole idea here was that the women could video their own farms, set down, watch the video because sometimes you don't recognize your own eye sores. I think that's true if you are landscaping or whatever. Until you really set down and watch it. We did this, we had the equipment, I would not say it was that successful, but I think it might be in another situation. Would you not agree Norma that in our area there's a little concern that the videos and where they may ago and what might be done with them, a little anti-regulation, forgive me those of you who are with the government, but it was not that successful, but I think perhaps we were doing so much at once, if that had been our major focus it might could be done in another way with your own home video cameras now, many people have them. And not shared at the offices and so forth, it still I think is a good idea. Its just for us what not that successful. We Did not accomplish goal number 9 because computerized emergency room surveillance because at the same time that our program was getting started, a nurse joined our community and she was doing surveillance. We felt that would be duplication. We did establish a second chapter in Simpson County, but our by-laws changed now and that is no longer. I think one of the major accomplishments was the format that we used to establish our or address those issues that the women had identified in the original survey and those issues were pesticides, tractor turn overs, hearing, skin cancer, stress, and I know I've left some out, but, back injuries, actually we used the concept of a photo novel and to address these issues to create discussion courses, I have a couple of these. They told me not to get away from the mike, so I am really like a robot up here. Those of you that would like to look at these after the program, I have some samples here, and order forms if you want to order them and also, Carol has put together with our Kellogg dissemination module how to go about producing a photo novel and whether you use our script or not it certainly is an idea that you could take back to your community and use.

The beauty of these is that not only did they feature one of the farm women in each of the photo novels, I should have gotten the one on back injury, if you could find it because it's the one that features Norma Corn, who is here. So we've got to mobilize the women, we also in each one of these hooked with someone in the community such as physicians, health care providers, physical therapists is in the one on back injury. They became our expert readers, so to speak, to make sure that our content was oK. And there's boxes in each of these that can facilitate discussion if you're using them with grooves. There has been some research done on photo novels that enhances the interest of the reader, if you see local people, you're more likely to pick up the material and also if you, it promotes supposedly the retention of the educational message, if you read about local people. I would also add to that as far as community development, it is a wonderful way to mobilize the community and get everyone involved. For example, one on pesticide, we started out at the extension office with the farm family and the man was saying I don't want to learn about this and the wife was saying, oh but you should. So we had the extension personnel there. Then he went home and he was not properly dressed and he developed toxicity he went to the hospital and we staged a scene at the hospital. A physician that is well known, everyone in Warren County knows this physician agreed to you know dress up in this white coat, I guess he was already dressed but he came in and we had the husband in the bed. I mean she was a real trooper. SO we built that bridge to with the health care providers. In fact, Doctor Scott has been very involved in our organization and has since then been a member. So we certainly think the photo novels are a wonderful way to mobilize the community and empower the farm women and also address this specific educational subject that you are attempting to address. We said no about the farm safety video, but since this slide was made we did produce a twelve minute farm video for children that addressed the specific areas in our community. Just a text from the photo novel. Some outcomes that were not in the proposal is that we have done farm safety presentations to over 3000 students and I know that's up to five to 10,000 since this was produced. We get frequent invitations to come in to the schools to talk about farm safety and that has been done extensively. In 1995, we were one of the fifth progressive farmer safety day camps and we just last week, or we're still recuperating from our fifth safety day camps for young that we've co-sponsored with Progressive Farmer.

Also, one of the big concerns from the surveys that were done is that women were concerned that they live in remote areas and they did not know CPR and first aid training. So the first two years a concern able amount of time was done teaching CPR and first aid. We were fortunate enough that men come. We'll never forget, we did them in rural churches. One night Norma had one out in her area, 10 miles or so from Bowling Green. It was on a Friday evening and I am a CPR instructor and here I go with all my mannequins and I thought who in the world is going to come now Norma knows what's she's doing, but I just cannot imagine who will come to a CPR class at 6:30 on Friday evening. It was one of the most enjoyable meetings I'‘ve ever had. There were 35 people there. It was a social gathering in this community so I hope you're getting the jest that we're talking about rural development also. But they ranged in age about a member that was a baby to like 85, Mr. and Ms Tab that were doing the Heimlich move on each other with the walker and I mean this was a fascinating evening let me tell you. So we have done a lot of first aid and CPR training. Another thing that is associated with this is the women came up with a sheet to write down exactly where they lived, now don't laugh when I say that. In our area, we're not like Iowa, Nebraska we do not have right angles to our roads and to give directions many times, we are concerned about delayed response times for the EMS and you know, the directions go like, you go to John Johnson's place and you see the oak tree and you take a right and you go over the bridge and you go up the holler and so forth. And it's not just where they live, but the women also said we need directions to get to our other farms because John maybe down on the lower place farming, so to speak. Now this is terminology. You have to be from our area, probably to understand. But that is one of the activities that the women did and they put all the emergency on laminated and would send them to the women so they could post them up by the phone. I've only had one lady tell me I am so glad I had those directions and it was not a farm accident, but her husband had a mild cardiac infraction, a heart attack. She said my perception was so distorted, you know anxiety distorts perception and she said I don't think I could ever have told them how to get here if I did not have that written right by the phone. These are simple things, but they can be done without funding whatsoever. We also sell first aid kits and we still have them for sale and I have one on display up here. We have our logo on it and that's increased our viability in the community and also added a little bit to our bank account.

The project is also created some unique educational opportunities for students who were from Kentucky University where I teach and also from the University of Louisville. Students come down in the summer while we are on nursing rotation and they help us with our safety day camp. I truly see this, the students as a partnership and a mutual benefit. It certainly benefits this the students, it expands their education and it also helps the partnership and it gives us more manpower to do health screening and to have our safety day camp. Some of the barriers, everything has not been smooth and rosy during the last five years and to just capture some of the barriers in five short phrases, the distance between the University of Kentucky which is the land grant at University and Western Kentucky University where this project was being implemented and then the rural health center is where our program evaluator was located which is another site. That distance certainly did at times ______ through the collaboration and working with the technology. Anyone that has worked with budgets, if you get budgets entangled in two bureaucratic university systems, you have problems. And primarily those problems was not that the money didn't eventually come. It was the time. You know and waiting and one institution saying well we've got to close down now if you don't get that funding, so. That certainly was an issue at times, but nothing that could not be overcome. I think more significantly, you know the barriers on this particular slide and I will just spend a minute addressing these because if you're doing community development and starring a project, I think these are things that certainly you could take back. Lessons that we learn. The grant said that we would become not for profit organization. But when we started doing the creating the mission statement, and getting by-lays and getting structure to this coalition of farm women, we lost the what I call the magic of the group, not completely but it certainly curtailed the magic of these women, this grass roots movement and you know there are pluses and minuses both ways. Now I think we're better off for having the not for profit because you have ______- or will have ______- or obtaining more funds and that has helped us reaching the gap. But at the same time, I see and maybe it would have occurred anyway, we lost some of that spontaneity. The magic of the group and I think you can probably identify with that and if you're going home and you're starting some organization, tried to keep your magic as long as you can. Also, there was conflict in messages, and I didn't realize this until it was years into the project actually. We were saying this is you're project, do whatever you want to with it, it's your project.

But at the same time, there were all these goals spelled out in the grant proposal that I felt needed to be accomplished, such as the farm medic, the continuing education program, and so forth. So I think clear lines of communication is certainly a must when you're working with community development and of course it's always an anxiety over the coalitions situation. Will I have funds and where will the funds come from and that's not unique to our project? But it certainly can have implications when you're trying to address farm safety or any other topic. Some plans for sustain ability for this group and maintenance things that were identified throughout the years is number one, we need to have regular gatherings and we have. I have one file drawer that is filled and there is a folder on every meeting that we have ever had and they have been monthly. I don't think we have missed a single month since we started. Back in 1993. The central resources coordinator no longer regional coordinator, we were fortunate enough to get some funding and I will explain that in a minute. We hired a new director in fact she started June the 15th. And we're very excited that I think the women as far as the coalition, they need continued recognition and we do this in various ways we have the sweatshirts with a logo. Tote bags, we get business cards for the women that were involved. I think those things are very important and travel also, like Norma's here and Peggy Tucker another of the women is with this conference and we went to NC and presented the program and so continued recognitions are important. Leadership conferences we've had a couple of those probably if we were doing this again, and several of the women have said we should have had more leadership training at the very beginning, like in conflict resolution team work and so forth. I think that would have been helpful. And that sense of identity is very important. It's very rewarding now when you go into the community and you're identified with farm safety and this organization. It's not just me, I think Norma can say if anyone mentions farm safety in our area now, they certainly think that this organization, which is different now than we first started. I also in relation to that I talked to a colleague in the community the other day and she said you know we're still doing our programs every years in the Richardsville community on farm safety and she said I don't even think that the people now realize that we got started because of the Kellogg foundation and I think that's the beauty of it when things continue and they don't even know how they got started is very important.

Some factors based on our sustainability I think number one, we do have an innovative model and this is farm women as change agents and I do think women can be effective change agents. They played a key role in mobilizing the community to address farm safety. The diversity and the risk in our area and that diversity also and topics to address so in other words there's always something to address in farm safety. We ‘re not limited to just horses or swine, or tobacco or whatever. The flexibility of this program I think it's a win win situation for all the key players. For the and businesses, for the organizations that are involved, for the universities, for the farm women, for the families and so forth. I think it will be a long term need for the program. Farming is not going away in our area. It may change its focus. It may have more a decrease in the number of farmers and in increase in the size of our farms, but farming is there to stay. It is an agricultural entity that will always be in need I think. Excuse me. For programs to address safety, I'll also think that we did not even realize it at the time, but building this partnership in our community has certainly led to rural community development. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Our logo, will close with a couple of comments, but this is our logo and we actually had a contest early on when we were getting started and it involved art students from one of the local high school to submit what they thought would represent us and increase our viability in the community which was another way of mobilizing the community. We do continue, we were housed in the nursing department because I was in the nursing department. Last year we moved into the, we have a wonderful agricultural exposition center and its on the university farm and beautiful office space out there. So we have moved, trying to build that and get away from the nursing and build a better relationship with the and community, plus that's where many of the advanced shows and so forth occur. So we can keep our pulse on what is happening.

We were very fortunate in one of the things that came out of being a not for profit organization, last year we were submitted a subcontract just the Kentucky partnership and was awarded $80.000 to a two year period to actually implement a national action plan for breast cancer for rural women and this is used in the Internet and in teaching rural women to access the Internet to obtain information about breast cancer. Now we are doing that in two of the smallest communities and I wish I had a slide to show you what Hadley One Stop looks like. It's in the Richardsville community and in Hadley this second year. There's just a one stop grocery where people come in and it a wonderful site. I get teary eyed thinking about this. There were several applications and I have to tell you that this project subcontract was awarded to a program in Anchorage, Alaska, Little Rock, Arkansas, Boston, San Francisco, and Hanley and Richardsville, Kentucky. So, our plans are and I share this because this is helping rural women help with our sustain ability. And then we plan to use that same model to get more information out about and health and safety at these sites also so I think it will be a wonderful method to increase the expansion of the program. We have found that if we take the message to the farmers, the farmers will listen. Last year I had nursing students in country stores, ten country stores at noon time because women primarily work for health insurance and the farmers stop in for their sardines and moon pies and so forth. At noon time, we did blood pressure checks and the farmers filled out a questionnaire about what health topics are you concerned about. And then the students prepared educational posters and took them back during Spring semester. So my point being you know, people say farmers are really independent and they don't blah, blah, you know. I think farmers, if we can make the information sensible to them, it would be amazing how they reach out and partner with us and obtain the information. I appreciate your attention and I will now turn the program over to Ann and she will do her presentation and then we will open everything up for discussion.

Anyway so what do we do about it? Well these kinds of programs inducing community education, training nurses, nurses at the clinics in these countries have allot of ability to pass on information and they have a commitment that you don't often see. That's one way of doing it. Getting that information to them. Educating doctors that are seeing these patients, they often don't recognize what toxicity means, and seeing the symptoms for toxic poisoning, we're finding that even in this country we don't know all of those symptoms because we haven't all been recognized because we haven't done the health studies that show what the long term chronic effects are. And those of you that have study pesticides and know something about pesticides, they live in the fat tissues in the body of people and animals and fish. So we often have this kind of misconception if you get rid of the toxicity that you get rid of the problem but that's not the case, because once it's been introduced in the environment it's there. It's in fatty tissue. It's stored in the fatty tissue of the animals that we eat the meat of, and in the fish we eat, so it's passed on. There are registries now that our government is keeping, public health department is keeping registries of what the different cancers and the different symptoms that doctors are supposedly reporting. We but now have sub registries for all those different types of toxics. And those sub registries are very important, because everyday they are adding more and more to those registries. You know we're going to get huge amounts of data out of that, but also is a message to us, there's more out there that we don't have much control over. So, there was part of Sanders book that I wanted to read to you, because what she's done I think is a very good thing. And that is to change the asking of the questions.

And I'd like to read this paragraph for you because I can't say it as well as she says it. After having carefully appraised the risks and losses that we have endured by towering it we can begin to imagine a future in which our right to an environment free of such substances is respected. It is unlikely that we will ever rid our environment of all chemical carcinogens. However as Rachel Carsen has self-observed the elimination of a great number of them would reduce the carcinogenic burden that we all bare, and thus would prevent considerable suffering in loss of human life. And she says that there are three key principals that could assist us, and this is the important page in the book. One is the idea that public and private interest should act to prevent harm before it occurs, this is known as the precautionary principle, it dictates that indicator of harm rather than proof of harm should be the trigger for action, especially if delay may cause irreparable damage. That makes a whole lot of sense, central to the precautionary principle is the recognition that we have an obligation to protect human life, a current methods of regulation by contrast, at what some frustrated policy makers have called the dead body approach. Wait until damage is proven before action is taken. It is a system tandem out to running an uncontrolled experiment using human subjects. I think that's a very powerful statement. And it really hits the nail on the head. Closely related to the precautionary principle is the principle of reverse ownness.

According to this edict it is safety rather than harm that should necessitate demonstration. This reversal is essentially shifts the burden of proof off the shoulders of the public and onto those who produce, import, or use the substance in question. The principal of reverse ownness requires that those who seek to introduce chemical into our environment first show that what they propose to do is almost certainly not going to hurt anyone. We do this with drug companies, why aren't we doing this with chemical companies. This is already the standard we have polled for pharmaceuticals and yet for most industrial chemicals no firm requirement for advanced demonstration of safety exists. The chemicals are not citizens, they should not be presumed innocent unless proven guilty, especially when a verdict of guilt requires some of us to sicken and die, in order to demonstrate the necessary evidence. And she says finally all activities with potential public health consequences should be guided by the principle of the least toxic alternative. Which presumes toxic substances will not be used as long as there is another way of accomplishing the task. But has implications for size, it means probably returning to the small farmer, you know looking towards more pest management, more biological solutions, you know it has unending implications for what we're doing right now. But in terms of third world women, small is beautiful. They have no control over big. We're loosing control over big. But they have no control over big, and so small is beautiful to them, and if they can operate a small area in a very safe way, their not interested in huge amounts of money, their interested in survival, their interested in subsistence just having enough food security to make it through the year is what their interested in.

Most of the women in Cambodia, for instance are widows, they don't have a man to do the work, they have to do transplanting of rice plants in order to survive because that's how they exchange their labor to get a draft animal. We come in and introduce a new type of seed to eliminate transplanting, all you have to do is broadcast the seed, wonderful the yields are improved but the women aren't benefitting from that the middle person benefits from that. Women have to end up having to come up with ten more micro enterprises making twenty more baskets a day, with no way of getting to a market, you know to make up the difference. So these kinds of impacts have a whole cyclical effect on people. And we have to really think about that. And in their case, I think small is beautiful. Maybe a rice, a small portable rice mill, but taking away the transplanting, you know, you have to think about that which saves them labor, but what does it do in terms of having to increase labor in other ways. These are very complicated questions and the women themselves are the ones that have the answers for what they want to do with their lives and that is definitely what is respected. But you can see how this just goes on and on and on.

And we're all in the toxic pesticide kind of cycle. We're all involved in that. Our food, our water, our air, we have it in our systems. There's a ways that we can prevent our children in the next generation from having to carry around as much of it as we have, although allot of it is passed onto fetuses as well, yes, in the room. There's still a chance they won't be able to deal with it better than we will now. At least what we can do is stop taking the chance.

Any questions, do you have? I could go on and on about this. I want you to have a chance to ask questions and talk about the concerns that you have.

Question: I'm just curious being a farmer myself, how do they handle those chemicals and I guess my perception of their living conditions how do they care for their clothing and things like that after they handle. We've been indoctrinated time and time again, to wash our clothes and wash again. I have an old wash machine in the basement on my farm that we use just for handling our clothes that use on chemicals. But what do they do about it.

Answer: I can tell you what I've seen. I've seen women handling pesticides and than with their clothes on and I mean, and go right into the water where their fishing, they have these little fish ponds, and go in and get, they have a net that takes two people to work, and they go right in and get the fish right out of the pond, having just sprayed. There just isn't a connection there and they don't have...there's really very little control. They don't have the clothes to change. They don't have five sets of clothes. And washing the clothes is a big ordeal cause you have to go down to a washing area and that's a long walk and they only do it once every two weeks because there's so much work. There are all of these factors that keep them ever being able to control what would be safe in the practice of using. Plus I told you about how they mix them together. So the toxicity levels are just tremendous. Than you can imagine what's going into that rice. You know. And what their eating. It's totally out of control. I'm not joking. It really is a bad situation.

Question: I just wanted to ask what they do with the containers afterwards and what's that affecting? Answer: Well allot of the containers are just left. There isn't a garbage pick up or anything like that. There no recycling program. And there's so much to do, there's just so many ways it can be improved and yet, it would seem that the most logical thing would be to stop the use of those pesticides and go into pest management with biological kinds of ways. The food and agriculture association is doing that but their trying to undo the last ten years of agribusiness type training. You'd have see it to believe it. It really is incredibly difficult situation.

Question: Well I'm not talking third world, I'm talking Suskatchuwa Canada. There was some people who brought home some chemical and they dumped it into their spare, and they realized it most have been frozen because it did not dissolve good so they phoned the chemical company and they said what do we do with this chemical, it's no good. And the chemical guy said, well just go dump it someplace, but please don't tell me where you put it.

Yes, that's not an unusual answer either, that's more the case than not. It reminds me of when in the 70's when I was here in the states before I went to Australia, of the answers you would get from the like, Northern States Power Company in Minnesota where I was living was building a nuclear power plant, and we used to have these seminars with them, and we'd say well what about the waste, what are you going to do with the waste. Well we don't know, we don't know, we don't have the technology yet, but we'll come up with something. And I remember as a student, as a graduate student saying well, why do it if you don't have an answer to that question, that's a huge, huge problem if you don't have a way to get rid of the waste. It's the same way with these toxic pesticides they don't have the answers to the questions.

Well in Rhode Island, we have to make a report where all the chemicals, so in her circumstances she had on her records that she brought that chemical, where did it go? We have to show everything.

That's being done in the states now, a requirement that you have to register everything. Not only with just the restricted one but with the ordinary ones.

Statement: Again another experience that's not third world country. My husband and I run a station, in Australia, and he had a contract to put in twenty thousand acres of Sorghum [?]. And the spraying contractor was always spraying the crop and his method of protection for his men who were marking was to give them an umbrella.

Statement: I'm wondering if there's been any, there's lot of education opportunity for farmers, but I think it's been showing at least in our providence, where the pesticide levels in the river are higher on the east side of Winnipeg than they are from all the rest of Manitoba and it's all from the urban use and there's been hardly education in the cities. And no control.

Statement: I come Prince Overton Canada and we grow allot of potatoes and it seems to me that in the fan community that we have to take courses to apply pesticides, and we have to keep records of the amounts we use, and we turn in our containers when we're done, so on and so forth, but the urban, rural people can spray their lawns, they can do anything with their gardens, just Canadian Tower or Walmart, where ever, and buy any amount of chemicals. Like, I think that's where we need to control. I don't think that it's all coming the farm community and it's certainly not the third world it's all around us. Answer: That's exactly right, and the question of public perception is very important, because attitudes do make a big difference. And if they blame the farmers, and they blame the companies, and the blame gets shifted around. Everybody has to take responsibility. It's everybody's problem. We're all having to really seriously look at the use of pesticides, and herbicides and fungicides, chemicals in general. Not just from gardening and farming. From industrial contamination as well.

Question: I understand there's also a big problem with all these golf courses that are going up, and apparently there's been people who work on the golf courses and the greens keepers and stuff, there's an increased cancer rate amongst these, it's usually men, like brain cancers and things like that, so this lady from PEI is exactly right. Farmers are always blamed for polluting and so we have to look at the lawn care companies, the golf companies, the race tracks, all of that type of thing to because as she said, their not required to record everything they do either. And so I think it's something else that we need to add to our list of what we want coming out of this conference, that other people need to be held responsible and not just farmers.

Statement: I used to work in the area of agriculture, I saw the distressing situation where herbicide containers were discarded and people who had to go to a well to get their water had taken those containers and were using those to get their water and you could see right around the home where the grass was bleached from rinsing and just, and so people who not even actively farming are very subject to those same problems.

Question: How long have you been traveling in Cambodia? Ten years, five years? How soon are you seeing the health effects show up in these women and their families? I give you a little bit of background, in my community, our particular farm has sandy loam soils, to the south of us the soil is heavily, and we have noticed and we are sure there is probably a direct link to the cancer that we're seeing in the rural areas with the farm families. There is a certain area within ten miles of me, that we used to say that ever third family is affected with cancer. We now feel it is every other farm. That the identification, our technology isn't there yet that we can say ok twenty years ago, these people used this chemical, or this cancer, what I'm curious about in since in those third world country, their intake and exposure is probably accelerated ten to one hundred times, showing up more rapidly, are you able to identify the cancers.

Answer: The things that showing up more rapidly are the birth defects and reproductive problems. You know the amount of miscarriages are very high and the birth defects as well. But the cancers yes, they are coming. I think the book Living Down Stream, does the best job of addressing the issue that you raised. Of how long does it take to show up and how can we actually say that it was due to an environmental toxicity problem, if there are so many other reasons that it could be caused by. I think with these registries, the sub-registries that are forming now, their able to show the relationships to certain regional areas and also GIS systems (geographic information systems) are now being used to identify target areas. In other words of looking at slopes of land and how water systems could be potentially be affected by a farming region. Where they would in and study intensely that area. And what they study are things like immunological suppression, through blood testing, they look at a whole variety of things, not just you know whether the person has any signs of cancer or not. Their finding out this whole notion that people are genetically predisposed, you know, how big that is in the way of an idea. You know if your mom had it you'll probably get breast cancer that kind of thing. Well that notion is in question, because their finding that children, very small children are getting leukemia. Very quickly, living in a particular area. You get high incidents rates, or particular types of cancer. And your finding that each type of cancer is treated very differently and studied very differently. And so breast cancer is the cancer that's been most studied that has the highest link to the environment. Because Sandra herself has breast cancer, she did the best I've seen as far as analyzing all of those parts of the US. Mind you this is a study that is strictly US in her book. She's done a very, very longitudinal kind of evaluation, and it comes closest to making those links with breast cancer and women living in particular areas. It's an interesting thing but because she herself was an adopted child and everywhere she'd go to give talks, well your mother probably had cancer, your father had cancer. My adopted parents had cancer, both of them died of cancer, and my brother had cancer, but I'm an adopted child. So this whole notion of biological genetic predisposition, yes, it is important but it's not the only thing, because there doing all kind of studies with children and adopted families that show different kinds of results. It's an interesting issue. That longevity. It has to do with studying a pesticide, you have to look at dosage, you have to look at persistence which there are ways that they can measure, there are all kinds of formulas. You have to look at how long a period of time you exposed, so exposure time is important, there are several factors and several formulas that have to be kinda equated to come up with your chances of getting cancer. And you could figure it out. You might want to know.

If any of you want any more information I have quite a file of it. I teach a course in this back in Australia, and I'd be very happy to send you anything that you might want. I encourage you to get that book. If you want information, you want me to send to you. Come up here and sign a sheet here and I'll send it to you.