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What single thing could change the US food
system, practically overnight? Widespread public awareness – of how this system
operates and whom it benefits, how it
harms consumers, how it mistreats animals
and pollutes the land, how it corrupts public officials and
intimidates the press, and most of all, how its power ultimately
depends on a series of cheerful and ingenious
lies.” - Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation
Eric Schlosser has his finger on a pulse
that is critical to the lifeline of people and
the planet. However, there is an additional
component that is so obscured from
public view that even Schlosser leaves it
out: the rights of those who plant and harvest
our food. This is an army of invisible
migrant farmworkers who pick almost all
of domestically grown produce. They are
almost invariably Latin American and
Caribbean immigrants who may be
unable to demand their rights because
they are undocumented or because they don’t know
what rights they have. And those rights are not many.
Farm labor is not covered under the National Labor
Relations Act, and therefore the workers cannot form
unions or bargain collectively. They did not even have
the right to minimum wage until a couple of decades
ago, long after other professions in the U.S. were covered.
And to make minimum wage, the typical tomato
harvester must pick the weight of an elephant each day.
While farmworkers may be invisible, the food they pick
is increasingly on people’s minds. The movement
toward local, organic, non-corporate food is rapidly
burgeoning across the U.S. It takes many forms, such as
La Montañita Co-op’s ground-breaking efforts to create
a sustainable regional food-shed.
Sustainable agriculture is sometimes called a threelegged
stool standing on three Es: economy, environment,
and equity. Yet equity is often left out of the
equation. This is true even on most large organic farms across the country, where workers don’t fare much better than on conventional
farms. True, workers on organic farms are spared exposure
to harmful chemicals. But a recent survey of organic farmers in
California found that two-thirds of growers do not offer any benefits
to their workers. Another California study found that organic farmers
widely oppose any requirement to pay benefits or to allow farmworkers
to organize.
The recent victory won by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, in
which McDonald’s committed to dramatically improved wages and
rights for pickers of its tomatoes (see Co-op Connection, May 2007),
provides more visibility and leverage to put human
and labor rights into the sustainability equation.
The work of that Florida-based farmworker
organization will soon be strengthened by a new
national initiative with a base in Albuquerque.
Launched just last month, Just Harvest from Field
to Fork is hell-bent on engaging the food and agricultural
movement to ensure that sustainability
includes rights for those
who plant and harvest. Just Harvest
will use education, media, and coalition-
building to raise U.S. consciousness
about the injustice experienced
by farmworkers. In conjunction with
the Coalition for Immokalee Workers,
Just Harvest will work to translate
that consciousness into sustained
political activity to win higher wages,
better benefits, and expanded rights
for farmworkers.
“We dream of receiving the respect that human beings merit. We dream
of maintaining our families with dignity, of offering them the future
that has been denied us for so long. Let’s plant that dream like a seed
and make it grow.” So says Gerardo Reyes Chávez, farmworker and
organizer with the Immokalee Coalition.
That is the dream and intent of Just Harvest, too. We know that it is
for many a Co-op shopper, too. If you want more to learn more,
become involved, and/or make a donation to this effort, please contact
justharvest@gmail.com.
Beverly Bell is coordinator of the Other Worlds collaborative, and cofounder
and adviser to Just Harvest from Field to Fork.
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