Source:  Taylor Arnold, EDUCATION NC, 8/9/21


When you buy a box of blueberries at the grocery store, how often do you think about the people who picked it for you? In North Carolina, blueberries, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and other crops can be harvested by child farmworkers as young as 10 years old — and federal law permits it. Recently, North Carolina research partners carried out the Hired Child Farmworker Study, examining the health and safety of hired Latinx child farmworkers. What we found paints a surprising picture of the characteristics of child farm labor in North Carolina, and the need for policies that protect child farmworkers from injury and support their education.

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