In Uruguay, the booming rice-export industry is casting a shadow over the health and lives of the workers who produce it. Although the sector has long been considered one of the country’s economic success stories, mounting evidence points to widespread and inadequately managed exposure to agrochemicals among labourers in the rice-fields, with serious consequences that include cancer, lung disease and miscarriage.
Take the case of 50-year-old Julio de los Santos, a rice-field worker who began losing strength and experiencing kidney and leg problems before being admitted to intensive care. He was diagnosed in 2018 with an occupational illness linked to pesticide exposure, and now depends on over 30 medications and a ventilator to survive. His family was even recommended to relocate from the area — a school lies just a few hundred metres from the fields, and cropdusting planes regularly fly overhead.
Uruguay’s rice sector accounts for about 30,000 jobs and includes more than 500 farms concentrated in the east and north of the country. The industry has made Uruguay Latin America’s second-largest rice exporter, with more than 95 % of its output shipped overseas and revenues topping half a billion dollars.
Yet in this economic success story lies a health crisis. Studies from the region around Bella Unión revealed alarmingly high rates of respiratory illnesses, cancer and congenital abnormalities: in one 2007 study, some 60 % of children under two had bronchial obstruction, 37 % of women reported fertility issues, and 25 % had experienced multiple miscarriages. These figures far exceeded national averages. Several of the chemicals implicated include herbicides such as glyphosate and 2,4-D and insecticides such as chlorpyrifos and endosulfan, notably applied via aerial spraying that sometimes bypasses buffer-zones near homes.
Despite ratifying international conventions on pesticide use, experts warn Uruguay lacks rigorous epidemiological and toxicological research and suffers from weak monitoring of agrochemical use and insufficient training of healthcare professionals. While the government-owned insurer registered 938 workplace complaints in the rice sector from 2013 to 2021, only one was related to agrochemicals. Between 2017 and 2021, the national toxicological advice centre logged 195 consultations of which just 35 were connected to agrochemical exposure.
From industry and regulatory perspectives, officials point to land-rotation systems, temperate climate and flood-irrigation as mitigating factors. Nonetheless, worker-representative unions argue that many of the safety protocols that are legally mandatory remain unimplemented. “There are recommendations that are not followed … it is a cultural issue,” one union leader said, adding that many workers are hesitant to report problems for fear of losing their jobs.
In one emblematic case, de los Santos’ company admitted a causal link between his illness and glyphosate use, but on appeal the court reversed the verdict — citing difficulties in proving that the agrochemical from that specific company alone caused his condition. His case is now under review by the Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights and may go to the corresponding court.
The rice-industry’s role as a major export generator for Uruguay appears to mask an urgent occupational-health crisis. While profits grow and foreign demand remains strong, the human cost of maintaining those yields is coming under renewed scrutiny — exposing a gap between export success and worker safety.
