The “Harvest of Shame” continues

Originally posted at NC Policy Watch

While the modern landscape of North Carolina agriculture may not, at first glimpse, look very "modern," many of our local growers are, in fact, now operating in a new global agribusiness paradigm.

Yes, it's true that many of the same crops are still grown on the same land, using many of the same methods. They are still planted by hand, and harvested by hand, as they have been since the time slaves were doing that work. But don't get caught up in nostalgic notions of the preservation of small, family farms-today the name of the game is, overwhelmingly global, agribusiness; factories in the fields.

This is illustrated by the new effort to market the North Carolina sweet potato to European supermarkets. As recently reported by the AP , "the value of exports to the United Kingdom jumped from $5.7 million to $20.4 million between 2005 and 2009, and in the first six months of 2010 exports were on pace to comfortably exceed last year's total, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."

Further evidence of this shift can be seen in the sustained, heavy reliance by local farms on a vulnerable, immigrant workforce from the global south. Increasingly, US agricultural products are being "branded" for the global marketplace, and yet farm labor conditions remain hidden within this new marketing scheme.

It's been half a century since Edward R. Murrow's Harvest of Shame documentary aired on CBS, revealing the plight of migrant field workers and making a strong call to civil society for change. Murrow highlighted the "backwardness" of the extreme, systemic poverty of field workers, asking us how, in this great, modern nation, could this be happening? And 50 years later, the agricultural industry is still just as important to our national and state economies. Yet it still relies on a system of vulnerable, exploitable workers to hand-harvest crops. Murrow's concerns clearly have still yet to be addressed.

The global forces affecting North Carolina agriculture nonetheless offer new challenges and new opportunities to address some of the age-old problems that continue to exploit and degrade the environment and workers. Indeed, as agribusiness reaches out to new markets, it also changes the distribution of power within the system.

For example, if North Carolina growers wish to market their sweet potatoes to a European market, they will have to meet new health and safety standards of the European supermarket chains. This is one example of new possibilities for points of leverage, to again force the question (albeit rephrased and to a new audience) of how can this be happening here?

Recently, the Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN), held a series of events around North Carolina to kick-off the 'Harvest of Dignity' Campaign, which seeks to improve the laws protecting farmworkers. FAN is a coalition of organizations that work with farmworkers directly or work around issues affecting farmworkers.

The group's message is simple and straightforward: 50 years is far too long to wait for change. Change is badly and outrageously overdue, even more so now in the new, global agriculture system. And while many would agree that a complete overhaul is what's truly needed, what workers are asking for is relatively quite plain and simple: Just the basics.

Safe places to work: Enact basic health and safety standards to protect field and poultry workers from injury, illness and toxic chemical exposure on the job. Poultry processing plants should be required to keep line speeds safe.

Safe places to live: Require employer-provided housing to be safe, sanitary and provide for basic decency, such as privacy in bathrooms and locks on the doors.

Better enforcement of existing laws: Require state agencies to work together to enforce our state's current laws protecting field and poultry workers. Crack down on repeat offenders who ignore the law and put people in harm's way.

So, during this holiday season as you come together to celebrate over shared family meals, remember to thank the workers here in North Carolina who harvested your sweet potatoes, or worked on the line processing your turkey, that still do not have the basic rights that most workers take for granted.

It's time to stand in solidarity with these people to demand that 50 years is enough.

Update on Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 3:34PM by Chris Liu-Beers

This article also ran in the Dec. 16 edition of the Carrborro Citizen!  Here's the link.

Who gives us this feast?

Originally published in the Durham Herald-Sun

BY NILISHA MCPHAUL

Thanksgiving is a time to feast and be with loved ones. Every year my family and I gather at my grandmother's. We are thankful for having food to feast upon. But I have a question.

When you are sitting at the table and you all are passing around food and filling up your plates, have you ever thought about where your food comes from? Beyond the grocery store, have you ever thought about whether your food was imported or packaged or processed?

Some people answer the question by saying farms, which is correct. But have you ever thought about who harvests and picks the food on farms?

Well if you haven't, then this is a good time to really think about it. Most of us don't know who is making it possible for us to buy and to eat our food.

Have you heard of migrant workers? Migrant workers are often undocumented workers who come to America for a better life. They expect to have a decent job, but instead many find themselves working hard and long hours in the worst conditions, and some don't even get paid minimum wage.

I know you're probably thinking "Wow, that's terrible" but you haven't even heard the worst part.

Have you ever wondered about the ages of the people working in these conditions? Along with their parents, children are also working from as young as 6. I have two sisters and two stepsisters, who are 7,12 ,6, and 13. I can't believe that anyone my sister's age would have to go through this. That's like imagining my youngest sister working in a field without being able to play and go to school.

A field should be a place were children play, not where they have to work. How come no one has spoken up for them? Migrant workers often can't speak up for themselves because they don't want to lose their job, they cannot speak enough English to share their opinion or because they are afraid of being deported. Once they are here they may not have another place to go.

How come the government hasn't looked into this? Why are we allowing this to happen? Our food system, our migrant workers and their situation seems crazy, why aren't we doing anything to stop it? Why are children getting sick and sometimes dying from exposure to pesticides? Why are children being forced to work in the fields and yet they don't even have decent homes to live in? What is the world coming to when 6-year-olds have to work in the field to help their families out?

I am 15 years old and I work at the SEEDS educational garden. When I heard this, I felt confused and sad. To think that there are people of my age working in these terrible conditions just makes me want to inform the world about what is going on in our country.

When I sit down with my family on Thanksgiving Day and look at all the delicious things on our table, like mashed potatoes, collard greens, turkey, sweet potato pies, string beans and strawberry shortcake, I will think about where it all came from and how hard families have worked in the fields just so we can sit down and eat.

If you are interested there are many ways to help out such as writing to politicians, joining organizations that support migrant workers and their rights, and taking the time to inform others and the world about what is really going on.

Nilisha McPhaul is a freshman at Hillside.

Children in the Fields

By Emily Drakage, NC Regional Coordinator, Children in the Fields Campaign - Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs

The U.S. Department of Labor’s (USDOL) Wage and Hour Division sent out a press release on November 4, 2010 concerning the Strike Force initiative this summer in Western North Carolina.   The new and active interest taken by the DOL on child labor issues in North Carolina was encouraging to read about as an advocate of migrant and seasonal farmworker children. I was pleased to hear the investigators had found no evidence of child labor in the tomato harvest in Western North Carolina.  While this is a great improvement from the series of violations found during the blueberry harvest in 2008, it still pains me to think that when the USDOL investigates child labor in agriculture they are really only searching for children younger than 12 years of age.  

The agriculture industry is consistently ranked as one of the three most dangerous industries in the nation according to USDOL statistics.  All farmworkers toil under very harsh conditions and have less worker protections than any other industry. Yet, a result of an unfair exemption in the U.S. child labor law, children as young as 12 are permitted to perform dangerous, back-breaking labor for unlimited number of hours (outside of school hours) for poverty wages. The Fair Labor Standards Act, which regulates child labor in the U.S., has not been amended since its initial enactment in 1938 and fails to equally protect children who labor in agriculture as it does for all other youth in all other industries.

It is shameful that we as a country still allow this unequal standard of protection to exist.  Migrant and seasonal farmworker children continue to work and live in such environments and as a result these children sacrifice their childhood, education, and well being giving them little hope of escaping the cycle of poverty. The Fair Labor Standards Act which has not been amended since its initial enactment in 1938 fails to equally protect children who labor in agriculture as it does for all other youth in all other industries.

As previously stated, legally a 12-year-old child can labor in agriculture for unlimited number of hours outside of school hours. How can this be considered equitable when, for example, the law stipulates that a youth must be 14-15 years old with a workers permit to work limited number of hours in a grocery store? We must lend our voice in support of farmworker children and youth protections.  Farmworkers’ labor puts food on our tables and is an essential asset to North Carolina and the nations’ economy, but child labor is not.  In order for all children to receive equal labor protections please take action to end child farmworker discriminations by contacting your local representative or by finding more information at www.afop.org , www.ncfield.org , or www.harvestofdignity.org.

Harvest of Shame, Harvest of Dignity

Free film screenings at the NC Latin American Film Festival

Tuesday Nov. 16
7-9 pm
UNC Global Education Center

On the 50th anniversary of the acclaimed 1960 documentary Harvest of Shame by Edward R. Murrow, the Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN) and Minnow Media present Harvest of Dignity, a documentary exploring the conditions migrant and seasonal farmworkers face in the United States today. Farm and poultry work is some of the most difficult, most dangerous, and most important work in our community. Largely a Latino population of migrants from Mexico and Central America, these workers still face poverty, food insecurity, hazardous working conditions and few protections under the law. North Carolina is home to roughly 150,000 farmworkers and 28,000 poultry workers and their families. The vast majority of the fruits and vegetables and nearly all of the poultry we eat are picked or processed by hand. However, the people who feed our families through their hard work are often among the worst paid and least protected workers in our state. 

Using documentary photos and interviews done by Student Action with Farmworkers interns, film footage with NC farmworkers, legislators and educators, and clips from the original Harvest of Shame documentary, this piece focuses on safe places to live, safe places to work, education, and stronger enforcement of workplace laws.  This film was produced in collaboration with the Farmworker Advocacy Network’s Harvest of Dignity campaign to reform conditions for NC field and poultry workers. 

Spanish and English with English subtitles.

See more at the NC Latin American Film Festival website.
Download an event flyer to email to your friends and colleagues. 

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

The Birth of North Carolina’s Food: farmhands at work 

By Erin Krauss

Many of us think of the USA as an industrialized and professionalized country, worlds away from dependence on the land. But the food we eat, whether fresh or highly processed, at one point came directly from the soil. It is easy to forget who works the soil to make food grow. In elementary school, all of us learned about the Food Chain – who consumes what and what it takes to keep things balanced. In light of Thanksgiving season this year, I propose that we all revisit this idea of the Food Chain. But instead of just thinking about what we eat on a daily basis, let us think about where it comes from. How is food planted, tended to, picked and shipped to our stores? Whose hands do this work? Have we ever shaken one of them or thanked one of them? Finally, what would we do these hands were no longer here to pick the food that nourishes our state’s people?

Where does North Carolina’s food come from? It comes from the 150,000 farm hands that tend to our soil – about 8,000 of whom are contracted and brought here on Agriculture Visas (H2A Visas). The other 142,000 are estimated to be undocumented immigrants. All of these people are needed to work the land to produce the food that NC demands. These people plant, tend and pick sweet potatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, blueberries and strawberries - NC’s top agro-crops. This job is not an easy one. Does everyone remember how hot it was this summer? Cities across NC set record high temperatures over 100 degrees. Can you imagine harvesting vegetables in 100-degree heat, carrying 2 tons of sweet potatoes on your back? This is the way that farm workers in NC make a buck. Two tons equals 4,000 pounds, which is the equivalent to the weight of your average car. Carrying a car on your back will earn $50 if you are a farm worker. (I earn $50 within four hours, sitting at a desk job at UNC.) This job is not one done only by strapping young men in perfect health; to the contrary, a number of people in the fields are women, middle-aged folks, and youth. According to the US Department of Labor, nationwide, in 2006, around 1.2 million children under the age of 20 resided on farms – many worked in the fields. Not only this, but did you know that the places farm workers live are called “Labor Camps”? Yes, you heard that right, Labor Camps. Reminiscent of times in history we’d rather let reside in the past, right? But oddly enough, these “Camps” still exist with many of the same conditions that people lived endured in the mid-20^th Century. I’m not referring to sparseness; I’m talking about deplorable conditions. Bathrooms with no separation between the stalls for basic privacy; people washing their pesticide soaked clothes in buckets; no access to kitchen space to cook food; cockroach infested, tight spaces with 20, 30, 40 people in one-room buildings; and no landline phone provided for possible emergencies. This is what is really happening in the NC food chain: unhealthy working conditions, unliveable living conditions, and total naivety among the NC population regarding where the food comes from that nourishes our bodies and keeps us alive.

This Thanksgiving let us be conscious of what we know to be true about North Carolina: first, that it is a beautiful state and one that we are proud to live in. Second, that our neighbors, the farm workers, the people we depend on to feed us, are mistreated, hidden from the public, and neglected by employers and many legislators. The very people that feed us, half the time, are unable to feed their own families due to extreme levels of poverty. One in four of these people report being injured on the job – the job we ask them to do because we don’t want to do it. And these people’s voices are kept silent. Most US Citizens will not do the backbreaking work it takes to keep our stores stocked with an overabundance of food. But what we need to do as US citizens is speak up. We have the voting, constituent power to make a difference, speak out in our communities, and to talk to our legislators.

This Thanksgiving I invite my neighbors, residents of the Triangle area, to make a daily effort to think about food. Where does it come from, how many hands touched it before it arrived on your plate? Who planted it, made it grow, harvested it, and processed it? I invite you to talk about food with your children, loved ones, friends, and co-workers. I invite you to hold an event at your church, at your home, at your school – a dinner, a film screening, or a discussion. And finally, I urge you to speak up to your representatives – and tell them that you support legislation that will ensure safe living and working conditions for farm workers and will demand the enforcement of current protections that exist for people who harvest our food. 

This fall, the Farm worker Advocacy Network is launching a new legislative and community engagement campaign to support farm workers. If you want to be involved in any way, shape, or form, call to find out about how you can help.  Farmworker Advocacy Network (919) 861-2064; ask for Erin Krauss.

New Reports Demonstrate Need for Policy Reforms

The Center for Worker Health at the Wake Forest School of Medicine just released two new policy briefs that highlight the need for reforms to better protect workers.  

A look at the data on occupational safety shows, for example, that many field workers are forced to do their jobs in unsanitary conditions:

• About 20% of migrant farmworkers reported lacking individual cups for drinking water.
• Lack of water for washing hands increased to more than 1/3 in late season.
• About 1/2 of migrant farmworkers reported having no soap available for hand washing.
• About 60% reported having no disposable towels available for hand washing.

A second policy brief, focused on pesticides, concludes that "Greater effort is needed to reduce farmworker pesticide exposure through training farmers as well as farmworkers, more cautious use of pesticides, greater enforcement of current pesticide safety regulations, and new regulations documenting pesticide use."

Stephen Colbert in Support of AgJOBS

Photo by Alex Brandon

Last week, comedian Steven Colbert caused a stir by testifying before Congress in support of the AgJOBS bill. Colbert’s larger than life persona brought a record number of cameras to the “Protecting America’s Harvest” hearing held by the U.S. House Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security. While pundits and bloggers disagree about the appropriateness of Colbert’s appearance, very little is being said about the substance of the bill he went to Washington to support: AgJOBS. AgJOBS would provide a legal, stable labor supply and help ensure that farmworkers are treated fairly. The proposal contains two main parts:

1. An "earned legalization" program enabling many undocumented farmworkers and H-2A guestworkers to earn a "blue card" temporary immigration status with the possibility of becoming permanent residents of the U.S. by continuing to work in agriculture and by meeting additional requirements; and
2. Revisions to the existing H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program.

AgJOBS is a bipartisan bill that enjoys broad support in Congress. The AgJOBS compromise was carefully negotiated by the United Farm Workers and major agribusiness employers after years of intense conflict. AgJOBS is endorsed by major labor and management representatives, as well as a broad spectrum of organizations, including Latino community leaders, civil rights organizations, religious groups and farmworkers themselves.

AgJOBS represents a significant step forward for workers.  It has been on Congress' plate for several sessions and, with significant bipartisan and industry support, there is no reason that it can't move forward now.  If you believe that farmworkers should have more rights on the job and should have the opportunity to earn legal immigration status, please contact your Senators and Representative.  You can take action in support of AgJOBS here.

• For more background on AgJOBS, click here.
• Click here for a transcript of Colbert’s remarks.
• Click here to read "Colbert's Reminder: Immigration a Moral Issue" - a CNN Opinion article by Galen Carey, director of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals.

Here is the segment from The Colbert Report on Colbert's day spent as a farmworker:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Fallback Position - Migrant Worker Pt. 2
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

Another human trafficking case involving farmworkers

The NY Times recently reported on a massive human trafficking scheme that brought workers from Thailand to the U.S. in order to work the fields.  

The charges, prepared by Justice Department civil rights lawyers, were brought against the president, three executives and two Thai labor contractors from Global Horizons Manpower, which recruits foreign farm workers for the federal agricultural guest worker program, known as H-2A.

The indictment, which was unsealed Thursday in Hawaii, accuses Global Horizons executives of working to “obtain cheap, compliant labor” from guest workers who had been forced into debt in Thailand to pay fees to local recruiters. The company, according to the indictment, sought to “to compel the workers’ labor and service through threats to have them arrested, deported or sent back to Thailand, knowing the workers could not pay off their debts if sent home.”

North Carolina saw a similar case several years ago.  Here's the report from CNN on the NC case:

The sad reality is that conditions in this industry can sometimes lend themselves to the despicable tactics of traffickers.  For example, in many cases farmworkers are isolated, unable to speak English, and tied to a single employer who may or may not obey the law.  As long as workers remain disempowered from controlling their own circumstances, the possibility of abuse - even trafficking - will remain.  

This fall, FAN is launching a new campaign that will help to ensure that cases like this never happen again.  Join us today.

Click here for more information on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' campaign against human trafficking.