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Already, the Florida press has lambasted Ag-Mart, and Wal-Mart has removed Ag-Mart products from the shelves. Under pressure, Ag-Mart announced that it would stop using five pesticides linked to birth defects.

Burnette said there is nothing he can do to ensure that the company keeps its promise to stop using those pesticides. But he said he thinks the company is making "meaningful changes."

"There are people who say, if you have these significant violations, you should fine them, you should put them out of business," Burnette said. "If you put the company out of business, those workers are out of jobs."

Ag-Mart employs about 500 workers, most of them seasonal migrants, in North Carolina, state officials estimate.

Critics say state officials don't want to crack down on companies such as Ag-Mart.

Most state departments, including agriculture, are both advocates and law enforcers for industry. Their commissioners are elected and rely on contributions from industry leaders to finance their campaigns.

"The enforcement agencies see themselves as allies of the businesses that they're trying to enforce these rules against," said Carol Brooke, a lawyer with the N.C. Justice Center, a nonprofit advocacy group for the poor.

Regina Luginbuhl, head of the Labor Department's agricultural safety and health bureau, said she knows the frustration of trying to protect Ag-Mart workers.

In 2003, she found many of them living in an abandoned hotel strewn with trash and infested with roaches. Because the company used labor contractors to arrange worker housing, she couldn't hold the company responsible. Instead, she fined three labor contractors.

Today, Luginbuhl said, she has no way to know whether Ag-Mart's workers live in better conditions. She has no authority to inspect unless the company or its labor contractors arrange the housing.

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