Photo by iStock.com/Davy3 Photo
Before moving to Belle Glade in the 80s I had no idea how much sugar cane burning impacts certain communities in Florida. When I first started working as an educator at the local public high school I didn't connect the many absences that we saw with "cane burning season." But over the course of my 35 years working for the school district it became clear that sugar cane burning was directly impacting my students.
This seems like such a glaring public health issue, so why hasn't anything changed? People are worried about losing their jobs and being censored if they speak out.
Every year cane sugar producers set fire to thousands of acres of sugarcane fields between October and early summer. When the wind blows toward poorer, low-income communities -- like mine -- they burn. When it blows toward rich, white communities -- like Palm Beach -- they use methods that don't produce soot or air pollution.
For decades I've seen countless kids call out sick because of respiratory issues and asthma. I've watched the "black snow" fall into our open-air school courtyards as students change classrooms every hour. My husband worked on elementary school computers in nearby South Bay and was there on a day when the burns got so close that teachers were taking videos of the flames out of their classroom windows. Multiple kids were taken to the hospital that day alone because the smoke was so bad.
When the wind blows toward poorer, low-income communities -- like mine -- they burn. When it blows toward rich, white communities -- like Palm Beach -- they use methods that don't produce soot or air pollution.
This seems like such a glaring public health issue, so why hasn't anything changed? People are worried about losing their jobs and being censored if they speak out. The Sugar Industry owns local officials, legislators, school districts. They give money to towns and schools. People don't want to lose that influx of money.
That is why I wanted to share my story with a national audience. We need to make sure that Congress knows how big of an environmental and racial justice issue this is. The more that Congress hears about how important this issue is to folks across the country, the more likely they are to modify the Farm Bill to incentivize burn-free harvesting methods. Tell Congress to Stop the Burn!