Though the major focus of this blog tends to be gardening tips and troubleshooting, it is also a venue to discuss food security issues both within Canada and abroad. As discussed in previous posts, a population that is food secure is able to access enough nutritious and appropriate food that they do not have to fear hunger or malnutrition. Food Sovereignty is similar to food security, but with a broader focus. It looks not only at the accessibility of food to eaters but at the whole food system, the production, distribution and trade routes and the workers involved at each step of the process. Food Sovereignty is concerned with the farmers who grow the food, the land it is grown on, and the surrounding community as well. Discussions of food issues often focus on the farmers and the portion of money they earn for their crops, calling attention to the surprising fact that they usually receive at most 20% of what you pay at the store. Today, however, I wanted to bring attention to the plight of a group who receive even less attention than farmers, and that’s farm labourers.
Farm labourers are people who are brought in to work on farms, often at harvest time when large amounts of manpower are needed to pick, clean, and weigh produce for distribution. To be sure, this is not an inherently dangerous or exploitative work, many farm workers are well compensated, and many people do this kind of work temporarily to make money or in exchange for room and board while traveling (if you’re interested, check out WWOOF or The Harvest Trail). However, there are many places in which farm labourers are taken advantage of, being paid unfairly or not at all, having substandard living conditions and lacking a voice to protect themselves. These types of violations are frighteningly common on many large, industrial farms in the US and Canada. Two groups which work to publicize the realities of farmworkers’ experiences and push for stricter legislation are the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Justicia for Migrant Workers.
Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW)
The CIW is an organization of Latino, Hatian and Mayan workers throughout Florida. It began in 1993 in Immokalee, FL, the area with the densest population of farmworkers in the state, most of whom worked harvesting tomatoes and citrus fruits. The group has done outstanding work to protect workers’ rights with their Fair Food Campaign. This campaign brought attention to the low wages received by tomato pickers, who earned 1.3 cents per pound of tomatoes picked in 2005, meaning only 40-45 cents were made for a 32 lb bucket. The CIW focused on corporations which purchase huge quantities of tomatoes, such foodservice companies like Sodexo and Aramark, and fast food chains such as Taco Bell, Mc Donalds and Subway. Using a combination of protests and boycotts, they pushed these organizations to agree only to purchase from growers who paid their workers an additional cent a pound – a minimal-sounding increase, but one which would increase farmworker incomes by 75%.
Another accomplishment of the CIW is their Anti-Slavery Campaign, which shines a light on the fact that there are still many farms relying on modern-day slavery to get their harvesting work done. These farms hire illegal migrants and exploit them for work through witholding pay, threatening, beating and confiscating their passports. The CIW has received national and international praise for their work, and has led to historic court cases and freedom for more than a thousand workers.
For more on the CIW check out this article from Grist.org
Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW)
This is an Ontario-based group which focuses on the approximately 18,000 migrant workers in Canada, many of whom come from Mexico, as well as Jamaica and other Carribbean islands. Though most of these workers come through government-sanctioned programs, they are not extended the same rights as Canadian farmworkers. This means that many of them work 12-15 hour days without overtime, live in overcrowded, unsanitary accommodations, lack access to health care, and use dangerous chemicals without proper protection. J4MW is a volunteer-run group working to bring attention to these issues, and work with migrant workers to struggle for individual and collective rights and create a safe environment to agitate for change.
Please learn more about these campaigns by visiting their websites and consider sharing what you learn with people you know. The fact that these problems exist isn’t a reason to feel powerless – on the contrary, it shows why its so important to be aware of what is happening within our food system, and to continue to work on developing a new one, whether through gardening, buying sustainable food, or getting involved politically!
down the garden path 