Exhibit Highlights Berry Workers and Maine’s Unique Health Program

by Mike Hall, Oct 11, 2008

Each year, 10,000 to 15,000 migrant farm workers head to Maine to harvest blueberries and cranberries, cut broccoli, pick apples and supply the muscle and grit that fuels Maine’s agricultural economy.

A new exhibit from photo journalist Earl Dotter—The Farm Worker Feeds Us All: The Labor and Health of Migrants in Maine—chronicles this hard, heavy-lifting and back-breaking work and also Maine’s model migrant worker health care program.

The exhibit currently is on tour and will appear Oct. 23-24 in Washington, D.C., at the Health Care Justice Summit at the Washington Hilton. It is also the subject of the cover story in the October issue of the American Journal of Nursing (subscription required).

A slide show of the exhibit, along with audio of the interviews is available on the Migrant Clinicians Network website.

Working with Dotter, audio producer Tennessee Watson conducted interviews with the workers and the nurses and doctors of the Maine Migrant Health Program (MMHP), which treats workers through its mobile clinics and outreach programs. Says Dotter:

We could have gone to any state to document the lives of farm workers. We chose Maine because of the efforts of the MMHP, a project that effectively works to provide low-cost health care services to migrant and seasonal farm workers.

Time and time again, the farm workers we spoke with told us that Maine was one of but a few states where mobile clinics and nurse outreach teams offered them health care services in the fields and at worker housing. As a first step, we feel the MMHP should serve as a model for all agricultural states in our nation to emulate.

The photo above shows Miguel, who is part of a nine-man Mexican crew that has traveled to Maine for several seasons to harvest blueberries with a special short rake. Says Dotter:

He uses a technique called sweeping—the rake’s momentum pulls the berries from the thick bushes. Growers prefer rakers to use a shorter plucking motion to prevent damage to the berries, but this means workers must spend more time hunched over.

The berry rakers also must haul dozens of empty boxes to their work areas and then haul them back out of the field when full—about 25 pounds each. Experienced rakers can fill as many as 150 boxes day.

Says Dotter:

Through providing a better understanding of farm workers’ lives and working experiences, this exhibit hopes to contribute to the ongoing efforts to improve agricultural working conditions and farm workers access to basic services in Maine and throughout the United States.

Seasonal and migrant farm workers who produce our food have earned the right to be treated with dignity and respect, with a guarantee of healthy working and living conditions.

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