“Some of my first meetings as director (of TDA’s Right to Know Program), imagine this room: Rebecca Harrington from the United Farmworkers, Jon Fisher from the Chemical Council, somebody from the Farm Bureau, somebody from the Farmers Union and then we had somebody from Legal Aid. Those were the five entities that were in the room to negotiate the regulations […]
Mike Moeller
“When Hightower comes around, and they’re starting to put emphasis on organics, that was an attraction. By the time I got there, I was already working on farm worker issues and it was obvious pesticide protection was going to be a major thing that we would have to fight for, all the way until Rick Perry came along. I definitely […]
Mike Nassour
“I want to credit Jim Hightower’s cantankerousness, and just by God bullheadedness with raising awareness in this state that people are hurt by pesticides. They are. Just because you can buy something at Lowe’s or Home Depot doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to spray it on your face. I think people get that now because of the work he […]
Angela Lamb
“I’d like to offer you a piece of information that we’ve gathered in a survey. It’s how the citizens of this area feel about waste being brought into the area. And I would like to congratulate you because in the last two years you have discovered that this is the number one agricultural county in the state of Texas, which […]
Cather Woods
“Jim Hightower was one of the best things for Texas in my experience, in my lifetime, and I’m 78 years old. So, I started working with farmers during that era. He was really nice. He worked hard to make sure that he made it better for blacks. By making sure that you knew what was there, by reaching out to […]
Ellen Widess
“One of the provisions they (the Trump-era EPA) wanted to get rid of was the farmworkers’ right to have their doctors, or any other advocate, a lawyer, priest, worker center, anybody, union, get access to their pesticide safety sheets to know what they were exposed to, what the risks were and to be able to go after the company and […]
Sarah Vogel
“It made such a difference to me to have Jim Hightower and Jim Nichols (Minnesota Secretary of Agriculture) out front, articulating these issues so beautifully and showing their vision was possible and starting these different programs. In North Dakota, my campaign, I had a long list of campaign commitments, things that I was going to do if elected. I nicked […]
Brigid Shea
“The (Clean Water Action) canvass had a unique ability to literally be this foot soldier army that could go out door-to-door and reach people who may not show up elsewhere, but who really agreed with the idea of better protections for the environment, and eliminating excessive use of pesticides that were poisoning people, and making opportunities for organic farmers to […]
Jesse Oliver
“(O)ne of my first formal relationships with agriculture was at the Black Farmers Conferences and getting some history of what was going on with them and what had transpired…The few who held on, who actually worked the land and stayed there, were still facing difficult times, mistreatment by USDA, especially with respect to support farm loans, crop loans, crop insurance, […]
Pauline Medrano
“We went door-to-door into the different neighborhoods and found out neighborhood associations, PTAs, we promoted them however we could. It was grassroots. It was churches, PTAs, neighborhood associations, neighborhood groups. We’d say, ‘We want to start a farmers market. What would be a good day? What would be a good morning?’ Olmos Park (San Antonio) said, Monday morning. And that’s […]