In El Salvador's sugar cane fields, small changes bring new hope for workers

[Disir]

Sugar cane workers make up most of some 20,000 people across Central America who have died of a mysterious kidney disease over the past two decades. A pilot program is delving into why – and testing if small changes in workers' daily practices could yield life-saving benefits and reform a tough industry.

El Caulote, El Salvador — Facing a wall of towering sugar cane in charred shades of yellow, black, and brown, José Luis Rivas Masariego leans down to hack at a few stubborn stalks.

It’s barely 8 a.m. and already the heat is suffocating, his shirt soaked with sweat. Mr. Masariego tosses a few freshly cut shoots of cane onto a pile behind him when the sound of a plastic horn blares out across the fields.

It’s one of the many firsts that Masariego has experienced this cutting season.

In El Salvador s sugar cane fields small changes bring new hope for workers - CSMonitor.com

I wonder what game changes they will make if they get to the end of this road and it is chemicals.

 

[william the wie]

Actually the Brazilian cane harvester will likely eliminate these jobs before a final determination is found. Like combines in the mid-west here gypsy machine operators will replace all of these workers eventually.