⑴ The Salinas Valley, known as the salad bowl of the United States, is struggling with poverty and malnutrition among the migrant farmworkers who harvest its crops. More than a third of the children in the Salinas City Elementary School District are homeless; overall diabetes rates are rising and projected to soar; and 85 percent of farmworkers in the valley are overweight or obese, partly because unhealthy food is less costly, said Marc B. Schenker, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who studies the health of farmworkers.
“The people who grow our food can’t afford to eat it, and they are sicker because of it,” said Joel Diringer, a public health specialist and advocate for farmworkers. “It’s an incredible irony that those who work in the fields all day long don’t have access to the fresh produce that they harvest.”
For decades, the fields of the Salinas Valley have been a revolving door of migrants, from the Okies of John Steinbeck’s writings to the Latin American immigrants who tend the fields today. Ninety-one percent of farmworkers in California are foreign born, primarily from Mexico, according to the United States Department of Labor. While the valley’s vegetables are reaching an ever-growing number of American households, public health officials say there are no signs of improvement in the living conditions and diets of farmworkers.
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