Farmworkers keep our food system running—and many are migrant and immigrant workers laboring in conditions most of us will never experience. During National Occupational Health & Safety Week, our message is simple: Work shouldn’t kill.
The danger isn’t just one thing. It’s the way hazards stack up:
Chemical and pesticide exposure, often paired with too little information about what was applied, when it’s safe to re‑enter, or what symptoms to watch for, along with growing evidence of mental health impacts like depression.
Animal‑borne disease risks for workers in livestock and dairy settings, where exposure concerns can change quickly.
Confined spaces, including grain silos and manure or methane tanks, where workers face risks of drowning, suffocation, or exposure to poisonous gases.
Environmental hazards like extreme heat, wildfire smoke, toxic air, and ticks that can lead to serious illness such as Lyme disease.
Machinery, falls, and electrical hazards, from tractors and augers to ladders, barns, and wet or poorly insulated work environments.
Because of you, these risks can be preventable—not inevitable.
Your support turns public health into practical protection: you help get the right information to clinicians and communities, share worker‑centered resources, and back safety strategies that can be used in real workplaces not just in policy documents. You also help extend protections across high‑risk sectors where immigrant workers face disproportionate harm. And your support gives MCN the flexibility to respond wherever and whenever new risks emerge.
This National Occupational Health & Safety Week, your support makes rapid response possible, so MCN can update and share timely resources, support frontline clinicians, and strengthen protections for workers when and where risk is highest.
If you believe the people who feed us deserve to be safe, please give today.
