{"id":220,"date":"2026-06-06T05:39:53","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=220"},"modified":"2026-06-06T05:39:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:39:53","slug":"why-are-children-working-in-american-tobacco-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=220","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields?"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<div>\n<article>\n<header>\n<div>\n<ul><li>Feature<\/li><li>November 12, 2013<\/li><\/ul><h1>Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields?<\/h1><h1>Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields?<\/h1><h2>Young farm workers are falling ill from \u201cgreen tobacco sickness\u201d while the industry denies it and government lets it happen.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section>\n<time>November 12, 2013<\/time>\n<div>\n<p><em>This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.<\/em>\n<p>The air was heavy and humid on the morning the three Cuello sisters joined their mother in the tobacco fields. The girls were dressed in jeans and long-sleeve shirts, carried burritos wrapped in aluminum foil, and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. \u201cIt was our first real job,\u201d says Neftali, the youngest. She was 12 at the time. The middle sister, Kimberly, was 13. Yesenia was 14.\n<p>Their mother wasn\u2019t happy for the company. After growing up in Mexico, she hadn\u2019t crossed the border so that her kids could become farmworkers. But the girls knew their mom was struggling. She had left her husband and was supporting the family on the minimum wage. If her girls worked in the tobacco fields, it would quadruple the family\u2019s summer earnings. \u201cMy mom tends to everybody,\u201d Neftali says. This was a chance to repay that debt.\u00a0\n<p>The sisters trudged into dense rows of bright green tobacco plants. Their task was to tear off flowers and remove small shoots from the stalks, a process called \u201ctopping and suckering.\u201d They walked the rows, reaching deep into the wet leaves, and before long their clothes were soaked in the early morning dew. None of them knew that the dew represented a health hazard: when wet, tobacco leaves excrete nicotine, which is absorbed by the skin. One study estimated that on a humid day\u2014and virtually every summer day in North Carolina is humid\u2014a tobacco worker can be exposed to the nicotine equivalent of thirty-six cigarettes.\u00a0\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p13pq_img22.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 496px; float: right;\"\/>Their mother told the girls to stick together, but Neftali soon fell behind. \u201cI was seeing little circles, and the sky started to get blurry,\u201d she says. \u201cIt felt like my head was turned sideways.\u201d Her mother ordered her to rest in the shade, but Neftali sat down only briefly. \u201cI wanted to show that I could work like an adult,\u201d she recalls. She soldiered on through a splitting headache and waves of dizziness. Several times, about to faint, she sank to the ground between rows to rest.\u00a0\n<p>\u201cI would find her looking confused,\u201d Yesenia says.\n<p>Later in the day, Neftali heard someone retching. One row over, Kimberly was bent double, throwing up on the plants. Afterward, feeling slightly better, Kimberly resumed work, only to throw up again. When the twelve-hour shift finally came to an end, the sisters trudged back to their car. Neftali fell asleep on the short drive home, but that night, despite her fatigue, she was woken several times by the same dream: she was back in the tobacco fields, stumbling around in a daze, surrounded by suffocating plants.\u00a0\n<section>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2>Popular<\/h2>\n<span><span>&#8220;swipe left below to view more authors&#8221;<\/span>Swipe \u2192<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>What\u2019s Really Behind Peter Thiel\u2019s Panicked Move to Argentina<\/span>\n\n                What\u2019s Really Behind Peter Thiel\u2019s Panicked Move to Argentina\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nDavid Futrelle <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>Graham Platner and the Rise of White-Male Identity Politics<\/span>\n\n                Graham Platner and the Rise of White-Male Identity Politics\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nJoan Walsh <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>What a Week in the Hospital Showed Me About Our Broken Healthcare System<\/span>\n\n                What a Week in the Hospital Showed Me About Our Broken Healthcare System\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nGregg Gonsalves <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>What\u2019s Behind the Corporate Pillaging of \u201c60 Minutes\u201d<\/span>\n\n                What\u2019s Behind the Corporate Pillaging of \u201c60 Minutes\u201d\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nBen Schwartz <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>The next morning, ignoring their mother\u2019s pleas, the sisters went back for more. In all, the girls would spend four summers in the tobacco fields, working sixty hours during a typical week, their earnings usually $7.25 an hour. For many teens, memories of summer include a nostalgic mix of freedom and boredom, with lazy afternoons spent doing next to nothing. But the Cuello sisters mostly remember feeling exhausted, dizzy and nauseated. Only later would they learn why: the fields were poisoning them.\u00a0\n<p>* * *\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-215\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/268cb84316184d6081afd0ed83931862.jpg\" width=\"615\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/268cb84316184d6081afd0ed83931862.jpg 615w, https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/268cb84316184d6081afd0ed83931862-300x231.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" \/><\/figure>\n<br\/>\n<em>Tar from the tobacco leaves stains the hands of young workers.<\/em>\n<p>On a steamy July afternoon, Neftali and Yesenia are seated on a teal couch in Melissa Bailey\u2019s double-wide trailer. \u201cMiss Melissa,\u201d as she\u2019s known in these parts, lives in the heart of tobacco country, along a rural stretch outside Kinston, a town of 22,000 in eastern North Carolina. A rooster crows nearby and clouds gather in the distance, promising relief after days of scorching heat. Neftali, about to start her senior year of high school, runs her fingers through bangs she recently dyed red. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain what it\u2019s like to work in tobacco,\u201d she says, scrunching up her face. \u201cIt\u2019s just horrible.\u201d She shows me a photo taken of her in the fields; her hands are black with tar.\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/cuellos4_img_small2.png\" style=\"width: 305px; height: 250px; float: left;\"\/>\u201cOK, let\u2019s get started,\u201d calls Bailey. At 43, her sparkling eyes and easy laugh don\u2019t quite conceal the stress of a lifetime spent juggling emergencies. She recently lent her van to a homeless family and is now collecting food donations for a migrant family with eight children. Meanwhile, Bailey is struggling to hold together NC Field, a scrappy nonprofit she co-founded in 2010. Young farmworkers face a workplace fatality rate four times that of children in other industries, and Bailey\u2019s goal is to move kids into less dangerous work. It\u2019s a job with long hours and long odds. Many parents depend upon their children working just to get by.\n<p>Today, only four kids show up. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to keep things together in the summer,\u201d Bailey tells me. \u201cEveryone\u2019s working tobacco.\u201d\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p15pq_img22.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 571px; float: right;\"\/>From a \u201chillbilly mining family\u201d in West Virginia, Bailey moved to North Carolina in 2001 and soon got a job enrolling the children of migrant laborers in school. The hard edges that characterize life for North Carolina\u2019s 90,000 migrant farmworkers felt familiar. Bailey\u2019s grandfather entered the mines at age 12 and died at 32 in 1949 from a methane explosion; her grandmother, who helped raise Bailey, was evicted from company housing after the accident. When Bailey was a toddler, a coal company dam burst, killing several other relatives. Like many of her peers, she got married and had a child right after high school and spent most of her 20s getting by on welfare.\n<p>Still, she was surprised to discover that child labor was still legal in the fields; the more she learned about the hazards of tobacco, the less those fields seemed like a place for kids. A 2001 study found that one in four tobacco workers suffers from acute nicotine poisoning, or \u201cgreen tobacco sickness.\u201d Symptoms range from dizziness and vomiting to difficulty breathing and heart rate fluctuations requiring hospitalization. The pain can be so excruciating that some workers call it the \u201cgreen monster.\u201d A tobacco farmer in Kentucky said the sickness \u201ccan make you feel like you\u2019re going to die,\u201d a phrase I\u2019ll hear others repeat.\u00a0\n<p>These hazards have led countries like Russia and Kazakhstan to ban anyone under 18 from harvesting tobacco. The United States has played a role in such global efforts, recently spending at least $2.75 million to eliminate child tobacco labor in Malawi. But no such prohibition exists here. \u201cWhy do we ban cigarettes to minors,\u201d Bailey asks me, \u201cbut somehow it\u2019s perfectly OK to have 12-year-olds getting nicotine poisoning in the fields?\u201d\u00a0\n<p>* * *\n<p><!--pagebreak-->\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-216\" height=\"408\" src=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c9ec17710e95bc9088c7407f2ed182c2.jpg\" width=\"615\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c9ec17710e95bc9088c7407f2ed182c2.jpg 615w, https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/c9ec17710e95bc9088c7407f2ed182c2-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" \/><\/figure>\n<br\/>\n<em>Underage laborers blackened with coal dust at Bessie Mine in Alabama, 1910<\/em>\n<p>It\u2019s long been understood that some jobs should be off limits to kids. More than a century ago, Lewis Hine of the National Child Labor Committee traveled to the coal mines of eastern Pennsylvania, where he found children as young as 10 laboring underground. \u201c[T]he air at times is dense with coal dust,\u201d he wrote, \u201cwhich penetrates so far into the passages of the lungs that for long periods after the boy leaves the breaker, he continues to cough up the black coal dust.\u201d \u00a0\n<p>Although he carried a notebook, Hine\u2019s real weapon was his camera. One of his photos captured a man with a metal pipe towering over the boys, ready to strike any who disobeyed. His intimate shots of young miners, with their hardened faces and sunken eyes, made the \u201cbreaker boys\u201d an icon in the fight against child labor.\u00a0\n<p>The photos caused an uproar, but it wasn\u2019t until 1938 that Congress finally passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. Along with establishing a minimum wage and overtime pay, the FLSA banned \u201coppressive child labor,\u201d preventing youth under 18 from working in mines and factories. The FLSA was a seminal achievement, but it has significant loopholes. Influenced by racist Southern politicians, who argued in the 1930s that \u201cyou cannot put the Negro and the white man on the same basis,\u201d the law left out minimum wage and overtime protections for agricultural and domestic workers\u2014the industries that employed the majority of African-Americans at the time.\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-217\" height=\"433\" src=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c578faf752244d12a9339a967dc0ea4.jpg\" width=\"615\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c578faf752244d12a9339a967dc0ea4.jpg 615w, https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/3c578faf752244d12a9339a967dc0ea4-300x211.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" \/><\/figure>\n<br\/>\n<em>Children topping and suckering tobacco plants in Buckland, Connecticut, at the turn of the twentieth century<\/em>\n<p>Child labor standards, too, are considerably weaker in agriculture, where children\u2014then mostly black, now mostly brown\u2014can begin work at the age of 12. Limits on work hours, put in place to ensure that jobs don\u2019t interfere with study, are more permissive for field workers. A tobacco grower who hires a 12-year-old to work seventy-hour weeks in the summer is well within the letter of the law.\u00a0\n<p>No one knows how many children work in America\u2019s tobacco fields each summer, helping to bring in our nation\u2019s deadliest crop. When I put the question to Larry Wooten, president of the North Carolina Farm Bureau, he wasn\u2019t willing to concede that such a workforce even exists. \u201cIt\u2019s hocus-pocus,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t drive you to a farm this afternoon in North Carolina where anyone under 16 is harvesting tobacco, unless it was the farmer\u2019s children driving a tractor.\u201d\u00a0\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p14info_img22.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 490px; float: right;\"\/>Wooten is wrong. I spent a week driving down winding back roads and visiting remote labor camps, where I found more than a dozen tobacco workers under the age of 16.\u00a0\n<p>And when I joined a tobacco crew, I happened upon a 15-year-old from Guatemala with two friends who looked even younger. But no one tracks these kids, and growers aren\u2019t anxious to discuss the topic. When I reached out to the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina, they first wanted an assurance that I would convey a \u201cpositive message\u201d; when I declined that condition, I didn\u2019t hear back. A spokesman from R.J. Reynolds told me that the company\u2019s farmers abide by \u201call applicable laws,\u201d but said he had no idea how many minors might be working in grower-contracted fields. But North Carolina, where Bailey does outreach to more than 100 child tobacco workers every year, accounts for 80 percent of the flue-cured tobacco grown in the United States, the most popular variety found in cigarettes. Two of the big three US tobacco companies\u2014R.J. Reynolds (Camel) and Lorillard (Newport)\u2014are headquartered in the state.\n<p>Wooten didn\u2019t challenge the idea that tobacco workers can get sick from nicotine, telling me that he worked in the fields as a kid and would throw up when the leaves were wet. But he downplayed it: \u201cTake a 10-year-old boy and give him two cigars and it\u2019s the same thing.\u201d\n<p>Scientists first started to take nicotine poisoning seriously in 1992, when Kentucky began to monitor hospital visits by farmworkers. During a two-month period, emergency rooms in five counties admitted forty-seven people who complained of vomiting, abdominal pain, dizziness and difficulty breathing. Twelve required hospitalization, and two were placed in intensive care. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issued an advisory, putting the likely number of ER visits statewide at 600. \u201cIf the numbers found in Kentucky are any indication of the magnitude of this problem, then we are dealing with an illness which is inflicting a tremendous burden on this nation,\u201d said Dr. J. Donald Millar, then director of NIOSH.\u00a0\n<p>Nicotine poisoning makes the flu seem like a cakewalk. \u201cYou start out feeling dizzy,\u201d says a woman I\u2019ll call Martha, whom I visit one warm summer evening after she\u2019s finished a shift in the tobacco fields. \u201cThen come the headaches, and suddenly you start throwing up and can\u2019t stop.\u201d Martha often hallucinates during bad episodes, with the objects in her trailer growing so large that she fears they\u2019ll topple over and smash her.\n<p>I swing by Martha\u2019s trailer again a few days later. It\u2019s immediately obvious something\u2019s not right. Her skin is pale, and she struggles to keep her balance as she leans against the stove, cooking tortillas for her two children, who race around the cramped living room. Three days ago, she worked in a wet field, growing dizzy and nauseous on the ride home. She\u2019s spent the last forty-eight hours in bed or stumbling to the toilet to vomit, popping Tylenol like candy to mute her unbearable headache. \u201cI feel so weak, it\u2019s like my entire body is asleep or drunk,\u201d she says. Yet she plans to be in the fields tomorrow. She can\u2019t afford another day without pay.\u00a0\n<p>* * *\n<p><!--pagebreak-->\n<p>The surest way to prevent nicotine poisoning is to keep workers out of wet fields. Wearing waterproof clothing and gloves can help, but such outfits can also be an invitation to heat stroke. Martha tells me that her contractor doesn\u2019t let the crew wear gloves because he fears they\u2019ll damage the plants. Other growers, according to a study led by Thomas Arcury of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, advise their crews to start smoking in order to build up a tolerance.\u00a0\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p15info1_img2.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 413px; float: left;\"\/>Even workers who don\u2019t develop acute poisoning absorb dangerous amounts of nicotine. Researchers at Wake Forest took saliva samples and found that by the end of a season, \u201cnon-smoking workers had nicotine levels equivalent to regular smokers.\u201d Nicotine has been associated with bladder cancer and has been found to increase the size of other tumors. Last year, researchers at Brown University found that it may also increase the risk of heart disease.\n<p>Pesticides pose another threat. Many pesticides sprayed on tobacco are used on other crops, but tobacco requires an especially heavy application. Only five crops use more pesticides per acre. Thanks to a 2009 study by Wake Forest and the Centers for Disease Control, we know those pesticides are getting into the bodies of workers. Urine, blood and saliva samples taken from North Carolina farmworkers, most of whom worked in tobacco, found repeated exposure to six types of organophosphates\u2014a common pesticide used on food crops and tobacco, and a neurotoxin.\n<p>\u201cWith pesticides, there is no safe level of exposure,\u201d says Dr. Jennie McLaurin, a specialist in children\u2019s health with the Migrant Clinicians Network. To protect workers from pesticides, the Environmental Protection Agency mandates that they stay out of fields for a period of time after spraying. While the EPA insists these standards \u201care protective of all workers, regardless of size,\u201d the guidelines are based on an adult farmworker who weighs 176 pounds. McLaurin suggests there are special dangers to adolescents because they are smaller. Also, their livers and kidneys aren\u2019t as proficient at excreting toxins, and their nervous systems are still developing. \u201cAnything you throw at a kid,\u201d she says, \u201cwhether Tylenol or pesticides, is going to have a higher effective dose.\u201d\n<p>* * *\n<p>In the summer of 2009, Bailey invited several dozen young farmworkers\u2014including kids working in tobacco\u2014to sit down with a researcher from Human Rights Watch. The following spring, HRW released \u201cFields of Peril: Child Labor in US Agriculture,\u201d based in part on these interviews. The report, which included detailed descriptions of acute nicotine poisoning, was praised by then\u2013Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. \u201cWe simply cannot\u2014and this administration will not\u2014stand by while youngsters working on farms are robbed of their childhood,\u201d she promised.\u00a0\n<p>Solis has long displayed a special affinity for farmworkers. Her father came to this country from Mexico to work in the fields, and she renamed the Labor Department\u2019s auditorium after Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers. In praising the report, she said her agency was currently \u201cexploring regulatory changes to further protect children in the fields.\u201d It turned out she was referring to a clause in the FLSA that gives the Labor Department the power to ban children from particularly dangerous work by issuing what are called \u201chazardous occupations orders.\u201d (Although, in yet another example of the FLSA\u2019s weaker protections in agriculture, field hands may perform \u201chazardous\u201d jobs once they turn 16, while kids in other industries must wait until they\u2019re 18.)\u00a0\n<p>Those orders hadn\u2019t been updated in agriculture since 1970. During the Bush years, NIOSH, an arm of the Centers for Disease Control, published a list of recommended changes, but they\u2019d languished until Solis took office. In August 2011, the Labor Department proposed a sweeping set of updates to the hazardous occupations orders. They included a ban on hiring children to do work in grain silos, which can swallow workers like quicksand; to handle pesticides that pose long-term health risks; or to work at heights above six feet. They also included a requirement that tractors, the most common cause of death for young workers, be equipped with seat belts and rollover protections.\n<p>And they prohibited children working in tobacco.\n<p>In introducing the proposals, Solis struck an urgent tone. \u201cChildren employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America,\u201d she said. \u201cEnsuring their welfare is a priority of the department.\u201d The official in charge of drafting the proposed rules, Nancy Leppink, recalled a traumatic episode in which a tractor killed a friend\u2019s brother. \u201cI have thought of her and him often as my staff has worked on the regulations,\u201d Leppink wrote on the Labor Department\u2019s blog. \u201cNo sister wants to bury her younger brother.\u201d\u00a0\n<p>These weren\u2019t bureaucrats. These were people on a mission.\u00a0\n<p>* * *\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p17pq_img22.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 599px; float: right;\"\/>In early 2011, before the Labor Department unveiled its child farmworker proposals, Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau, stood before a large crowd in Atlanta. \u201cWe face challenges from regulators who are ready to downsize American agriculture, mothball our productivity and outsource our farms,\u201d he warned. Government overreach, he said, presented a \u201cclear and present danger to American agriculture.\u201d\u00a0\n<p>Stallman is at the helm of one of the most powerful forces in US agriculture. While the Farm Bureau bills itself as the voice of family farmers and ranchers, its anti-regulatory agenda often reflects the interests of agribusiness giants instead. It fights against labeling GMOs, wants to ease restrictions on the spraying of pesticides over waterways, and sued the EPA for trying to clean up the agricultural runoff that turned large parts of the Chesapeake Bay into dead zones. Board members of Farm Bureau affiliates include representatives from industry powerhouses like Monsanto, DuPont and Archer Daniels Midland.\u00a0\n<p>Seven months later, when the Labor Department proposals were announced, Stallman had a new target in his sights. The bureau trained its firepower, including forty lobbyists and $5 million a year in political spending, on stopping the new hazardous occupations rules in their tracks. It launched a national letter-writing campaign and formed a coalition of agricultural trade groups. The resistance grew to include Monsanto and the national trade groups representing pork, turkey, beef, dairy, cotton and rice producers.\u00a0\n<p>When labor advocates hit Capitol Hill, as one recounted to me, they realized the Farm Bureau had beaten them to the punch.\u00a0\n<p>The main argument against the rules was that they\u2019d hurt family farms. \u201cThat\u2019s why we opposed the rules,\u201d says Mace Thornton, a Farm Bureau spokesman. \u201cThey would have impacted farm kids and their ability to be a part of the family farm or ranch.\u201d In a letter to the agency, the Farm Bureau and its allies asked the Labor Department to withdraw the rules to allow \u201cfamily farms to continue to operate as they have for generations.\u201d\u00a0\n<p>That the rules would be a blow to struggling family farms held tremendous narrative power. The only problem: it just wasn\u2019t true. No child labor laws, including these, apply to family farms, or to the estimated half a million children who work on them. They cover only the 300,000 or so children who work as hired hands.\n<p><!--pagebreak-->\n<p>True, early on, the draft language said the exemption would cover only farms \u201cwholly owned\u201d by parents. But after the Farm Bureau protested, arguing that family farms are now often joint partnerships, the Labor Department made a fix, expanding the exemption to cover farms owned even partially by a parent.\u00a0\n<p>But the \u201cfamily farm\u201d narrative had taken root. A month after the fix, members of Congress in both chambers introduced the Preserving America\u2019s Family Farm Act to block the Labor Department from enforcing the rules. Among the key forces behind the lobbying push was agribusiness giant Monsanto.\u00a0\n<p>A key opponent in the House was Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican who sat on the House Appropriations Committee. During a House hearing, he threatened to attach a budget rider stripping the Labor Department of the funds needed to enforce the rules. A multimillionaire rancher, Rehberg said he\u2019d once hired a 10-year-old to herd his flock of cashmere goats. It was \u201cimpossible\u201d to get hurt on his ranch, he said, claiming that a 5-year-old could safely run the entire operation. Others piled on. A <em>Daily Caller<\/em> article claimed the rules banned \u201cfarm chores.\u201d Sarah Palin wrote that Obama was trying to \u201cprevent children from working on our own family farms.\u201d\u00a0\n<p>\u201cIn the beginning, I thought people really were confused,\u201d says Mary Miller, a child labor specialist with Washington State\u2019s Department of Labor and Industries. \u201cBut it was just a big disinformation campaign.\u201d Even members of Congress refused to absorb the fact that the new rules would leave family farms alone. During that same House hearing, Representative Roscoe Bartlett, a Tea Party Caucus member from Maryland, had the following exchange with the Labor Department\u2019s Leppink:\n<p><span>Bartlett<\/span>: How old does a child have to be before they can drive a tractor?\n<p><span>Leppink<\/span>: On their parents\u2019 farm?\n<p><span>Bartlett<\/span>: Yeah.\n<p><span>Leppink<\/span>: Zero.\n<p><span>Bartlett<\/span>: OK.\n<p><span>Leppink<\/span>: They can drive the tractor on their parents\u2019 farm at any age.\n<p><span>Bartlett<\/span>: My time is running out. I just have a real problem with our regulations.\n<p>* * *\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p15info2_img22.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 407px; float: right;\"\/>I\u2019m only hours into the shift, but sweat and dew have already soaked through my long-sleeve shirt and jeans. I reach between tobacco leaves to tear off another sucker and straighten up to wipe my face, the black tar from my hands leaving a sticky residue on my forehead. Ahead in the distance, I can make out several other members of the crew, who push forward between the rows before disappearing behind walls of tobacco leaves. I\u2019ll be playing catch-up all day.\n<p>I\u2019m in the middle of a tobacco field in Wilson County, but that\u2019s as much as I know about my location. Yesterday afternoon, I pulled up to a field and spotted a crew in the distance, their heads bobbing above the plants like buoys in a green sea. I eventually found the person in charge, a squat man named Alejandro. \u201cIf you want to work, show up at 5:30 tomorrow morning,\u201d he said in Spanish, giving me directions to a parking lot. When I arrived in the morning, I found dozens of Latino workers sleepily climbing into idling vehicles. I asked for Alejandro and was pointed to a white passenger van, where I squeezed into the back seat between two large men. One, wearing a flannel shirt and tattered straw hat, offered me a slice of cantaloupe. \u201c<em>Bienvenidos<\/em>,\u201d he said, before closing his eyes and leaning his head against the window. Welcome.\n<p>We pulled out of the lot and headed north, turning left onto a dirt road and zigzagging over a series of trails that became progressively bumpier. It was still dark, and I soon lost any sense of direction. By the time the van stopped, the sky had begun to lighten, and I could see that we were surrounded on all sides by tobacco. Alejandro came hustling over.\u00a0\n<p>\u201cThe work is easy,\u201d he said. Like the Cuello sisters, we would be topping and suckering, the last step before the leaves are picked and hung in barns to dry. I shadowed him as he moved down the row, tugging off shoots.\u00a0\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p18pq_img2.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 418px; float: left;\"\/>\u201cThe important thing is to look up and down the entire plant,\u201d he told me. \u201cSuckers can be everywhere.\u201d Then he jogged ahead to check in with the other crew members. Several had donned plastic trash bags in an attempt to protect their skin from the dew.\n<p>Though the crew quickly leaves me behind, it doesn\u2019t take long for me to get the basic idea down. But I soon find out that what the task doesn\u2019t require in skill, it makes up for in pain. My back aches with the constant bending, but the heat and humidity deliver the real punishment. The leaves of the head-high plants reach across the rows, trapping the air and stifling any breeze. Stooped beneath that arch, with the leaves reflecting the sun\u2019s rays, I can feel my brain start to overheat, turning the sharp edges of life fuzzy.\u00a0\n<p>I stumble on the uneven rows and trip twice before the morning break, though it\u2019s hard to say if it\u2019s the nicotine or the heat that\u2019s causing my dizziness. I join a line that\u2019s formed in front of the water coolers. \u201cYou look hot,\u201d a shirtless man in front of me says, letting out a squeaky laugh. \u201cThis is nothing.\u201d When he gets to the cooler, he soaks a rag in water and wipes down his stomach, arms and back, which are crisscrossed with red welts. \u201c<em>Pica el spray<\/em>,\u201d he says\u2014the pesticides sting his skin. He\u2019s not the only one whose back is lined with streaks.\u00a0\n<p>After drinking up, we sit in the shade of the van. A number of the men are curious about my presence and come over to chat. I ask whether they\u2019ve gotten sick from nicotine. Javier, a thirtysomething Mexican immigrant who previously sold ice cream from a cart in Austin, nods. \u201cOf course. It\u2019s a poison, but it\u2019s not a real problem. You get sick for two days and throw up. Then you feel better and come back to work.\u201d\n<p>Another man jumps in. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to go home. If you feel sick, walk to the side and throw up. And when you feel dizzy, drink milk.\u201d\u00a0\n<p>\u201cNot milk\u2014suck lemons!\u201d yells a bearded man still wearing a trash bag over his shirt. \u201cThrow up, then suck lemons.\u201d If the workers in my crew are any indication, a lot of throwing up goes on in the fields.\u00a0\n<p>I notice three younger workers standing apart from the group. I walk over to chat with one of them, whose boyish face is shaded by a red-and-white North Carolina State cap, and learn that he is 15 and from Guatemala. Our conversation is interrupted by a call to return to the fields.\u00a0\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-218\" height=\"413\" src=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ba2c65311bb658ccb080bcccca3637e8.jpg\" width=\"615\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ba2c65311bb658ccb080bcccca3637e8.jpg 615w, https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/ba2c65311bb658ccb080bcccca3637e8-300x201.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" \/><\/figure>\n<br\/>\n<em>Tobacco leaves are loaded into crates for curing and drying.<\/em>\n<p>The rest of the day is a blur. We break thirty minutes for a lunch eaten in silence\u2014no one\u2019s joking about the heat anymore\u2014and by afternoon, all signs of urgency have disappeared. Even Alejandro is encouraging us to take it slow, and after each row we return to the van to pour cold water over our heads for a moment of delicious relief. The air has taken on the heaviness and temperature of exhaust, and despite my sluggish pace, I can barely catch my breath. It feels like I\u2019m sucking through a straw stuffed with moss. Finally, a new supervisor arrives and tells us to pack up. \u201cIt\u2019s too hot,\u201d he says. \u201cDay\u2019s over.\u201d\u00a0\n<p>It\u2019s 5:45 <span>pm<\/span> when I get back to my motel, having earned $65.25 for nine hours of work. My head has been pounding for hours, so I take Advil and drink two large cups of water. There\u2019s a severe heat advisory in effect: it\u2019s 95 degrees, with a heat index of 111. It\u2019s no surprise that North Carolina farmworkers suffer the highest rate of heat-related fatalities in the nation.\n<p><!--pagebreak-->\n<p>In the spring of 2012, as the battle over the child labor rules reached fever pitch, Neftali and Yesenia boarded a plane and flew from Raleigh to Washington, DC, for a conference on young farmworkers. The event, organized by the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, included youth-led panels and workshops, with participants creating plaques to recognize the efforts of Labor Secretary Solis and Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, who introduced legislation in the House to increase the protections for young farmworkers.\n<p><img alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/p20pq_img22.png\" style=\"width: 200px; height: 466px; float: right;\"\/>Roybal-Allard came to accept her award on the first day of the conference. Solis, however, never showed. The reason for her absence soon became clear. That afternoon, the Labor Department quietly issued a press release announcing that it had withdrawn the proposed changes, citing the administration\u2019s firm commitment \u201cto promoting family farmers and respecting the rural way of life.\u201d\n<p>The retreat was absolute. \u201cTo be clear,\u201d the statement continued, \u201cthis regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.\u201d Instead, the Labor Department would be working with \u201crural stakeholders\u201d to \u201cdevelop an educational program.\u201d The first \u201cstakeholder\u201d listed was the American Farm Bureau. Not a single group advocating for migrant youth was named.\u00a0\n<p>The dramatic about-face left public health advocates reeling. \u201cI\u2019ve been following worker safety and health for twenty years,\u201d says Celeste Monforton, a professor at the George Washington School of Public Health and a former OSHA analyst. \u201cI have never seen anything like that statement. It was a sucker punch. It ran completely counter to what we would have expected from an administration that claims to be advocates for vulnerable people.\u201d\n<p>Details on who made the decision to drop the proposed changes aren\u2019t clear. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from <em>The Oregonian<\/em>, the White House refused to release 600 pages of information, arguing that doing so would \u201cinhibit the frank and candid exchange of views that is necessary for effective government decision-making.\u201d But the Labor Department did tell <em>The Oregonian<\/em> that it was the White House that sent the announcement over, with instructions to release the news on department letterhead. (The Labor Department, Solis and the White House declined requests for comment about the decision-making process.)\u00a0\n<p>There were, as is typical, a handful of problems with the proposed rules. The Labor Department\u2019s definition of \u201cpower-driven\u201d equipment, for example, was so broad that it could have banned youth from using flashlights. But these are the sorts of issues a public comment period is designed to address, says Rena Steinzor, a professor at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law and an expert on the regulatory process. \u201cAgencies propose rules, and if there are problems, they solve them with the comment period,\u201d Steinzor explains. \u201cThat\u2019s part of the fine-tuning process. That\u2019s what\u2019s been happening for a hundred years. Instead, we had somebody at the White House blow it up.\u201d\u00a0\n<p>* * *\n<p>Just before leaving North Carolina, I head to a shopping center to meet up with a 13-year-old boy that Bailey sent my way. Along the drive, I pass through tobacco fields stretching to the horizon. The tall plants, backlit by a dropping sun, are striking, their white flowers sprouting toward the heavens. But it\u2019s an ominous beauty. Just one acre of the crop produces enough tobacco for more than 1 million cigarettes.\u00a0\n<p>The boy, whom I\u2019ll call Ventura, is wearing cargo shorts and an A\u00e9ropostale shirt. He greets me with a tentative nod and slides into a booth at Subway. With thick black hair and bronze skin, he speaks in the quiet voice that young people often adopt for adult strangers, his eyes gazing down at the table. When he finally looks up, I notice fatigue lines beneath his eyes. He grimaces when he places his hands on the table. \u201cThey hurt from pulling the plants,\u201d he says, spreading his fingers open to reveal tar-stained nails.\u00a0\n<p>Ventura is vague about why he came to North Carolina, saying only that he is living with his uncle for the summer because his parents, Mexican immigrants who now live in Florida, \u201ccannot support a lot of what I want.\u201d He\u2019s been working in tobacco for two months, with a crew that includes two other teenagers, 14 and 17 years old. The workday runs from 7 <span>am<\/span> to 7 <span>pm<\/span>, six days a week; sometimes he works Sunday as well. He makes $7 an hour\u2014just shy of the minimum wage\u2014and as a farmworker he\u2019s not entitled to overtime.\u00a0\n<p>\u201cWhen it\u2019s rainy, I prepare myself with plastic bags,\u201d he says. But the bags don\u2019t always prevent the nicotine from seeping into his skin. \u201cWhen I\u2019m out there, I get dizzy\u2026 so dizzy,\u201d he tells me. \u201cSometimes I fall down. Sometimes I feel like I\u2019m gonna die.\u201d He says he has seen pesticides applied on adjacent fields while he works. He cracks a wry smile that turns into a grimace. \u201cMan, they\u2019re crazy. It smells horrible. I go home after that, and the walls are moving.\u201d\n<p>Before leaving, I ask Ventura if there is anything else he wants to tell me. So far, he\u2019s mostly given me brief answers. But he pauses to consider this request, looking down at his sore hands.\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t be asking people for stuff you want,\u201d he says, speaking slowly. It\u2019s an odd remark. Isn\u2019t \u201casking for stuff\u201d what being a teenager is all about? After a moment, Ventura goes on, his voice rising, his eyes still glued to his hands. He wants to work slower, he tells me, but there\u2019s a guy on the crew who rushes him. He wants to take longer breaks, but they\u2019re not allowed. He wants to stop working when the leaves are wet, but no one ever does. He wants to go home.\u00a0\n<p>It\u2019s now dark outside. The burst of talking has left Ventura looking depleted. He\u2019ll soon be heading to the fields for another twelve-hour shift. We say goodbye\u2014I remember to shake his hand carefully\u2014and he shuffles out the door, carrying a chicken sandwich in a plastic bag as he disappears into the night.\n<p><span>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"16\" height=\"15\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-219\" src=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/8d6c2c37f1274105fa7b0b5227fd04d8.jpg\"\/><\/figure>\n Take Action: Demand an End to Child Labor<\/span>\n<p><em>A rule protecting kids is killed, thanks to industry pressure. Then at least four young workers lose their lives. See the report by Mariya Strauss, also in this issue.<\/em>\n<\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=211\">What\u2019s Behind the Corporate Pillaging of \u201c60 Minutes\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=213\">Graham Platner and the Rise of White-Male Identity Politics<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<footer>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\n                Submit a correction\n            \n<\/li>\n<li>\n\n                Send a letter to the editor\n            \n<\/li>\n<li>\n\n                Reprints &amp; permissions\n            \n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2><i>Support <\/i>The Nation<i>\u2019s June Fundraising Campaign<\/i><\/h2>\n<p>With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink about Americans\u2019 financial situation,\u201d millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-\u201cd\u201d populist ideas\u2014not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Nation<\/i> elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court\u2019s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.<\/p>\n<p><b>We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we\u2019re raising $20,000 to power <i>The Nation<\/i>\u2019s independent journalism in the run-up to November\u2019s immensely consequential elections.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you\u2019ll donate today.<\/p>\n<p>Onward, <br\/><br\/><span>Katrina vanden Huevel<br\/>Editor and Publisher, <i><span>The Nation<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/p> <\/div>\n<div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><span> Ben Schwartz<svg>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>Ben Schwartz is an Emmy-nominated writer whose work has appeared in <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, <em>Vanity Fair<\/em>, <em>The New Republic<\/em>, <em>The New York Times<\/em>, and many other publications. His Bluesky address is @benschwartz.bluesky.social.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=209\">The District 12 Candidate Nobody Is Talking About<\/a><\/p><br\/>\n<\/div>\n<input\/>\n<input\/>\n<\/footer>\n<\/article>\n\n\n\nAd Policy\n<!-- <a class=\"inifiniteLoader\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/new_infi_loader.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a> -->\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields? 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