The president of the United Farm Workers urged a group of about 200 people Tuesday to boycott grapes and push for farm workers’ rights.

Cesar Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers, spoke at Carl Sandburg Auditorium about the mistreatment of migrant farm workers in the grape-growing regions of San Joaquin Valley in California, concentrating on the their exposure to dangerous pesticides.

“The use of pesticides in California has gone out of control,” Chavez said. “Everywhere, the air, the water and the soil is contaminated by pesticides.”

e said more than 1,000 cases of pesticide-related illnesses are reported annually in California from the 8 million pounds of more that 130 different pesticides that are used in the states grape production.

Chavez said most of those pesticides are sprayed by planes or helicopters which means much of what is sprayed drifts in the air, sometimes for miles, contaminating everyone who breathes the residue.

“Farmworkers live and work in areas directly exposed to pesticides,” Chavez said. He cited several examples where grape-pickers have died or had children with birth defects. Chavez added the poisons the grape industry sprays on its crop remains with it until consumers buy the grapes around the country.

Chavez said recent tests performed on grapes from various supermarket chains confirmed the presence of carcinogenic and birth defect-causing chemical residue from commonly used pesticides like Captan, Methyl Bromide and Dinoseb.

Because of this, he urged people not to buy Californian table grapes until the industry can take responsibility for the food they sell to their consumers and added that the UFW needs at least 20 million people to make the boycott effective.

Chavez stated the UFW grape boycott was also brought on because of poor treatment and working conditions which the migrant workers are forced to endure and said the growers have used violence against workers who have tried to organize through the UFW.