Sunday, March 31, 2013 at 12:19PM by Jennie Wilburn While spending time on Pinterest we came across an infographic called "10 Reasons to Thank a Farmer." This made us get to thinking (and creating) and as part of National Farmworker Awareness Week we think that it's also important to thank farmworkers so we made our own infographic. We hope you like it and will share, tweet and pin it with friends! Got Food? Thank a Farmworker.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013 at 3:24PM by Jennie Wilburn National Farmworker Awareness Week (NFAW) is a week of action for students and community members to raise awareness about farmworker issues on our campuses and in our communities. In 2013 we celebrate the 14th Annual National Farmworker Awareness Week to raise awareness about farmworker conditions and to honor their important contributions to us every day!
Each day of Farmworker Awareness Week has a theme based on a mural created by Student Action with Farmworkers’ Levante Leadership youth group in collaboration with the Beehive Design Collective. This mural depicts the story of farmworkers, the story of human labor working the land, and the story of struggles for justice across generations. Since the mural represents many different struggles farmworkers face, it is the basis for 8 different themes, one for each day of the week of awareness. The themes can be found here and "like" Farmworker Awareness Week on Facebook to get facts, videos and photos each day! There are LOTS of events going on around the country so check out this calendar to find out events in your area. We will also be updating our Facebook page with local events so follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Finally, we are sponsoring an Instagram Challenge to encourage people to use the modern day technology of Instagram as form of artistic expression to help depict the ways that farmworkers influence our lives and the different faces of injustice that are still happening today. Each day of the week upload a photo related to that day's theme to enter with the hashtag #nfaw2013. The best pictures will be voted on by our Facebook followers! People who enter each day will recieve a small prize and the best photo will win a grand prize NFAW prize pack. It's not too late to enter! Follow us @harvestdignity on Instagram and don't forget to "like" your favorite photos on Facebook!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 at 10:58AM by Jennie Wilburn Buy burritos & support farmworkers! Bring this flier to the Moe's in Cameron Village on March 22nd and 20% of your purchase will go to support FAN!
Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 1:44PM by Jennie Wilburn Transnational Storytelling: Linking Farmworkers in India & Ethiopia with Farmworkers in North Carolina
Student Action With Farmworkers (one of our members) recently announced that Laura Valencia was awarded the 2012 SAF Petrow-Freeman Documentary Award. Her project is an experimental media tool that demonstrates the parallel lives that farmworkers live in different parts of the world. Her work focuses on connecting environmental and social justice in a unique multimedia way that takes you on a global food systems journey, and we encourage you to learn more about Laura and her work.
Laura Valencia was a SAF intern in 2009 with (FAN member) Toxic Free NC in Raleigh, during which time she produced seven short Spanish-language web videos about organic gardening tips and farmworker justice. After her internship Laura continued to be involved with farmworker justice, creating documentary work for Toxic Free NC and NC FIELD. She credits these experiences with shaping her own identity, helping her to see her role in the creative process as a storyteller, and teaching her to think critically about the ethics of storytelling and its role in social change. From her work in farmworker and food justice, Laura became a Presbyterian Hunger Program Food Justice Fellow, doing research in India and eventually joining a bus trip for social justice. As her interests expanded to include communities abroad, Laura credits SAF with her connections abroad and for sparking her interest in social and environmental justice, a passion which continues today.
Laura’s project is unique in that it incorporates audio, visual and other multimedia sources to connect individual stories to a larger systemic problem. She interweaves the themes of food justice, labor rights and sustainable agriculture into what it means to be a healthy community, both in the towns of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Mussoorie, India, as well as in the larger society. Taken as a whole journey, her works points to the need to connect small, seemingly isolated communities to work together to confront unjust systems of oppression. Finally, Laura’s project highlights the importance of storytelling and the role that participatory media can play in the process of social change. We encourage you to watch, listen and interact with Laura’s work, “Food Justice: A Global Food Systems Journey,” to see an example of a SAF alum branching out with the work that SAF engages in for transnational advocacy and cross-cultural storytelling.
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 2:37PM by Jennie Wilburn By: Levi Vonk, SAF alum
The most disturbing aspect of Dodge’s 2013 “So God Made a Farmer” commercial was not the ad itself, but the reaction to it. Media outlets far and wide heralded Dodge for its rough-around-the-edges, down-to-earth approach. Even actor Rob Lowe was on board, tweeting: “God made a farmer. Yes. Not hip, no gimmicks. Not trying to be funny. Just great.” On the year’s glitziest night, Dodge had the courage to talk about the real America. Nevermind that Dodge’s goal—lest we forget—was to sell gas guzzling trucks. Nevermind that the small farmers they portrayed would probably never be able to afford a Dodge Ram that realistically costs $30,000, let alone the $16 million that Dodge dropped on its two minute commercial glorifying the austerity of the farmer America forgot. Nevermind that most purchasers of a Dodge Ram are not farmers, but people who place greater importance on image than functionality.
If I was a small farmer, I would be angry. There are pitifully few of them left as it is, mainly because corporate agriculture has forced Paul Harvey’s idyllic grower into the margins. The fact of the matter is, the narrative of the “small farmer” is by and large a false one, not because there aren’t men and women out there willing to put an honest day’s work into the fields, but because corporations have methodically killed them off for decades. And now another corporation is using the image of small farmers for their own profit? For shame.
We haven’t even gotten to farmworkers yet. And should we? If you’re reading this, you probably already have a list of grievances. That the new Dodge Ram costs almost three times as much as an annual farmworking salary. That the average farmworker works and lives in conditions so inhumane that the corporate bigwigs who sponsored the commercial could not even begin to imagine them. That by championing the small farmer, Dodge has forgotten the farmworker, rendering him nameless, faceless, and without significance or consequence. But this is nothing new. Even the Buy Local movement often leaves the farmworker behind, so it’s really no surprise that the corporate auto industry does the same. And perhaps this time, we can take consolation in the fact that the migrant worker was left out of the equation. Their labor is constantly exploited to sell cheaper produce, cheaper goods, and cheaper political ideology. At least they aren’t being used to sell cheap trucks too.
Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 2:31PM by Jennie Wilburn This post comes to us from Daryn Lane, a SAF alumna and theA meriCorps VISTA Local Stakeholder and Engagement Coordinator at RAFI-USA (Rural Advancement Foundation International- USA).
And here's Joe Schroeder's take on the ad from over here at RAFI:
http://rafiusa.org/blog/what-makes-a-farmer/
"Were the farmers represented too white? Too male? Too well-resourced? Too big? Too commodity-centric? Not representative of who actually labors in the fields?"
In the blog post, Joe also highlights one of our newest videos about TCFR grantees. This one is about Felix Vargas, a farmworker turned farm-owner: "While many barriers keep migrant farmworkers from owning farms, he was able to obtain citizenship and slowly build the capital to invest in his own operation. Felix represents a growing population of Latino farmers in North Carolina and throughout the US. The influence of this demographic shift is already significant and will be increasingly important as we explore the immigration reforms necessary to meet our agricultural needs."
Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 2:49PM by Chris Liu-Beers Originally published by the North Carolina Council of Churches: www.ncchurches.org/2013/02/god-made-a-farmer-but-what-about-farmworkers
As I watched the Super Bowl with my family on Sunday night, one ad stood out. It was the beautiful slideshow of farmers, accompanied by the eloquent words of the late Paul's Harvey's speech entitled "God Made a Farmer." The ad was a moving tribute, evoking powerful emotions while praising the often unrewarding daily labor of farming.
Here's an excerpt from Harvey's words:
"God said, 'I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.' So God made a farmer."
Again, it was a beautiful - almost haunting - two minutes. But why were all the farmers white? Why didn't the ad depict the reality of farmworkers, the millions of men and women whose hard labor makes possible the abundance on our plates?
A recent story about "God Made a Farmer" by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers highlights this disconnect and why it's wrong:
The vision of rural America at the heart of the ad -- the visual definition of the farmer God made that is the subject of the two minute poem -- is, almost without exception, monochrome as can be. Out of 21 images of people representing farmers, 19 are white, one is African American, one is Latino...
Today, the vast majority of physical labor done on the vast majority of commercial fruit and vegetable farms in this country is done by farmworkers -- the vast, vast majority of whom are not white. There are more than 3 million farmworkers toiling on farms in rural communities from California to Florida and everywhere in between, yet, in an ad extolling the virtues of farm work, the people who work on farms are almost nowhere to be found.
It is not wrong to extol the labor, daily sacrifices, and invaluable contribution to American life of our nation's farmworkers. It is wrong to paint farmworkers white in order to do so.
The reality is that farmworkers pick the food we eat, and most of those workers are immigrant workers whose backbreaking labor -- the selfsame noble labor exalted in the ad's moving words -- is systematically underpaid and underappreciated. If the words read so powerfully by Paul Harvey are able to reach deep inside of us and move us to buy a truck, they should be powerful enough to move us to reward the work of our country's 3 million farmworkers and provide a living wage and dignified working conditions in return for their virtuous labor.
God Made a Farmer, and Farmworkers Too. Photo by Peter Eversoll.
The lack of farmworkers in the ad is frankly a stunning omission, and it highlights the challenges that face farmworkers today. Farmworkers are routinely ignored in the policy debates that affect their lives. And it turns out that even tributes to hard work on farms, like the "God Made a Farmer" ad, fail to honor the contributions of farmworkers. It's up to us to help turn the tide. It's time we recognize that God made farmers and God made farmworkers too.
Got food? Thank a farmworker.
-Chris Liu-Beers, Program Associate
god made a farmer in Farmworkers in the News Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 10:37AM by Jennie Wilburn Valentines Day marks one of the biggest shopping days of the year, especially when it comes to chocolate and flowers. But did you know that often your tokens of affection are supporting pesticides, child slavery and farmworker exploitation? Learn more about the products you are buying and what you can do to support fair labor practices this February 14th (or if you aren’t buying any gifts and choosing not to celebrate, here are a few more reasons to be contemptuous about the gross commercialization of romance):
Flickr: User Nenna
Flowers: Fresh cut flowers and roses are a great way to show someone that you care about them; however, it is possible that those flowers were picked by an exploited or enslaved worker. Cut flowers that large floral retailers sell often come from countries like Colombia and Ecuador where workers rights aren’t always respected. Exploitation of workers in the flower industry is common, especially among female workers who are at a greater risk for sexual harassment and assault. Moreover, the Pesticide Action Network reports that flowers grown in Ecuador and Central America rely highly on dangerous pesticides that are harmful to workers and also use child labor. To learn more about flower practices in Ecuador check out this Frontline documentary:
To protect these women and children flower workers, look for bouquets bearing the Fair Trade logo or certification. Fair trade flowers can be find online at FTD Flowers or One World Flowers which even features “themed bouquets” such as “Honoring Japan” and “Helping Haiti.” Whole Foods also offers fair trade flowers in their floral department and local farmers markets offer seasonal organic bouquets grown nearby.
Chocolate: Like in the flower industry, child labor, environmental degradation and worker exploitation are also prevalent in cocoa harvesting. Much of the world’s chocolate supply comes from West Africa, where child labor is common. Over 40% of the world’s non-organic and non-fair trade comes from Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where the International Labor Organization and US Department of State have reported widespread instances of child labor. Furthermore, to meet growing industry demands, farmers have been forced to clear forest territory in areas of rich biodiversity, to make room for cocoa farms. Check out the documentary “The Dark Side of Chocolate” to learn more about the “true story of how your chocolate is produced.”
For ethical chocolate online we recommend fair trade retailers www.coco-zen.com, www.naturalcandystore.com, and www.equalexchange.coop. This chocolate scorecard is also helpful when shopping at the supermarket. Locally, check out Videri Chocolate Factory in Raleigh, which uses all fair trade and organic cocoa beans (and offers tours of the factory to the public!).
Greeting Cards: According the EPA, the US consumes about 71 million tons of paper per year. This year consider saving trees by sending an e-card (we like this bilingual adult e-card by the Organic Consumer’s Association). Another option is to send an e-card with a donation to a non-profit. These “Gifts of Fairness” are a great way to appeal to the social conscience of your sweetheart.
Buying fair trade certified and organic products are the most important things you can do this Valentine’s Day to ensure the healthy and safety of workers and protect the environment. Many companies, small and large, do not offer fair trade products. Show your love this holiday by asking your local florist or filling out the comment section on chocolate manufacturers' websites to tell them that fair trade is important to you. For example, two years ago the FTD, one of the largest flower retailers in the world, began offering fair trade certified flowers as a result of a Change.org petition that garnered 9.450 signatures!
Finally, if you have grand dinner plans this Valentine’s Day, consider eating locally. Within the Triangle we are fortunate to have many restaurants that are farm-to-fork or that are dedicated to using locally sourced ingredients. Two of these are partner restaurants, Piedmont in Durham and Zely & Ritz in Raleigh, prepare fresh, organic, locally grown dishes, with over half of their ingredients coming from local Coon Rock Farm. Both are offering Valentine menus that are guaranteed to be delicious and socially conscious. For those couples that feel like staying in this Valentine's, hit up your local farmers market and have your own picnic at home! Or better yet, you and your beloved (and maybe a group of friends) can pick your own produce! Use this guide to find out what farms in your area allow you to pick your own produce. While it might not be quite warm enough yet, strawberry picking is a great bonding activity, and you can use what you pick for brunch or dessert!
This Valentine’s Day, the Farmworker Advocacy Network and farmworker advocates around the world invite you to show your loved ones that you truly care by putting your money where your values lie. Help break the chains of industrial agriculture and corporate globalization by choosing fair trade and organic flowers and chocolate for your Valentine’s Day gifts and by eating and shopping locally.
