In Florida, politics and produce are intertwined.

Agricultural interests have poured at least $35 million into state and federal political campaigns in Florida since 1996, powerful proof of the industry's ties with decision-makers.

Yet the ties run deeper than campaign cash to candidates, committees and parties. The House Committee on Agriculture, which helps shape state laws over the industry, is stacked with politician-farmers.

Seven of the committee's 14 members are growers or have ties to agriculture, their financial-disclosure forms show. The influential chairwoman, Marsha ``Marty'' Bowen, R-Winter Haven, is a citrus grower.

Advocates seeking to overhaul agriculture's darkest corners often encounter dead ends. This year, two farmworker reform bills died in the Legislature without even a vote.

Advocates view the defeats as part of a larger pattern in which growers remain largely unscathed while workers toil under arduous conditions.

``If there weren't any state troopers on the highway, I'd probably drive faster,'' said Gregory S. Schell, a Lake Worth lawyer with the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project of Florida Legal Services. ``There aren't any state troopers on the labor highway.''

``Passing pro-farmworker legislation in this state - forget it,'' Schell said.

Abuse abounds in agriculture-rich Florida. Five slavery prosecutions since 1996 have sent Sunshine State crew bosses and smugglers to prison, hundreds of crew chiefs have had their licenses revoked for skirting laws, and a Herald review exposed ongoing exploitation in North Florida farm country.

This year, Rep. Frank Peterman Jr., D-St. Petersburg, tried to trigger change.

A church pastor as well as a state legislator, Peterman said he was inspired after a group from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers came to his church two years ago, prompting him to visit workers in the field.

``I was moved spiritually to take on their issue in the state Legislature,'' said Peterman, now pastor of The Rock of Jesus Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg. ``I haven't stopped since.''

He once spearheaded a campaign to provide long-sleeve T-shirts to more than 3,000 state farmworkers - long-sleeve so workers wouldn't get cuts and infections from pesticides. Last year, he pushed a bill that did pass that precludes farm contractors from profiting from equipment they provide to workers. That minor measure took two years to gain approval.

POWERFUL INDUSTRY Wages and pesticide bills fail to go anywhere

At this year's session, he proposed two bills. One would allow workers to sue growers in state court if they were cheated on pay. The other would grant workers the right to data on pesticides.

Neither bill made it to the floor for a vote.

``The root of the problem is that politicians throughout Florida know that agriculture is a powerful interest in this state, and you don't want to get on the wrong side of them,'' said Rob Williams, director of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Tallahassee, who helped craft the bills.

The wages bill went to the House committee headed by citrus grower Bowen. In December 2001, she listed a net worth of $872,300, with her largest assets a residence, citrus grove, barn and pasture in Haines City. Her largest income source was Bowen Brothers Inc., a family business in Dundee.

``Agriculture is a major contributor to the state's economy [In 2000, total cash receipts were $6.95 billion],'' Bowen wrote in response to Herald questions. ``It behooves the Agriculture Committee, and the Legislature as a whole, to have committee members knowledgeable of the subject being regulated.''