The Hands That Feed Us: Challenges and Opportunities for Workers Along the Food Chain

Today, the Food Chain Workers Alliance releases a new report, The Hands That Feed Us: Challenges and Opportunities for Workers Along the Food Chain, the first of its kind that looks at wages and working conditions of workers across the entire food chain – a sector that employs 20 million people in the U.S., comprising one-sixth of the nation’s workforce. The Hands That Feed Us is based on nearly 700 surveys and interviews with workers and employers in food production, processing, distribution, retail and service, which collectively sell over $1.8 trillion dollars in goods and services annually, accounting for over 13 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.

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Wages, Wage Violations, and Pesticide Safety Experienced by Migrant Farmworkers in North Carolina

Not only are migrant farm workers in North Carolina often exposed to hazardous pesticides that are damaging to their health, but a new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center finds that many of these same workers also face wage violations. The study, conducted by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, found that nearly 20 percent of all farm workers in North Carolina had experienced wage violations in their work and many didn’t even make minimum wage. The study also found an association between wage violations and pesticide safety regulation violations. In fact, two thirds of farm workers had not been provided with required pesticide safety training, and only half were informed when pesticides had been applied to the fields where they worked. The study is published in the journal New Solutions (Vol. 21). The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Northeast Center for Agricultural and Occupational Health.

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