AMERICANS LIVE better than anyone else on earth, it's often said, and that good living includes the agricultural bounty the land affords. But the 3 to 5 million men, women, and children—also almost all Americans—who plant and cultivate and pick this country's fruits and vegetables don't live well. Like the populations of Third World nations, the migrant farmworkers survive.
At the recent 12th annual National Migrant Health Conference, held in Indianapolis, Ind, the professionals who help some of them do so discussed the several accomplishments and many continuing problems of the federally funded Migrant Health Program, which began in 1962. Participants in the conference were the physicians, nurses, dentists, social workers, and administrators associated with the 600 community health centers and 120 migrant health centers that care for an estimated half million migrants and other rural and farmworkers each year. These patients are only about 17% of those who need