Dining and Opining

There's big news in the [agricultural] justice world, as Walmart signed on to the Fair Food Program, which protects laborers and human rights in the US produce industry.  Walmart representatives John Amaya and Tom Leech, and CIW’s Lucas Benitez and Gerardo Reyes Chavez [plus Nely Rodriguez, not pictured] sign historic agreement at a Lipman Produce farm outside of Immokalee, FL. The Fair Food Program was initiated by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. According to its website, CIW is a "worker-based human rights organization internationally recognized for its achievements in the fields of corporate social responsibility, community organizing, and sustainable food. The CIW is also a leader in the growing movement to end human trafficking due to its groundbreaking work to combat modern-day slavery and other labor abuses common in agriculture." Several other retailers have reached agreements with the CIW in the past, but Walmart's participation is huge, given th...

Another food writing workshop exercise, this one in response to a prompt to "write a food piece that makes a point": One twelve-year-old, Jon, played the role of Jose. Jon traded his South Chicago accent for that of a Mexican migrant worker (or what he imagined it to be). A girl in the class, Lindsey, assumed the role of the overseer, pushing Jose to work long hours in the grueling sun, offering only measly wages in return.  The class of kids, part of a summer pre-college pipeline program for students from under-represented groups, tried to put themselves in a whole other world.  The skit, set in the tomato fields of a southern Florida plantation, encouraged the students to think about the deep and complicated picture of agricultural labor in this country. It made them consider how deeply intertwined immigration issues were with the tomatoes on their hamburger, made them realize that a form of slavery exists in our modern world in which migrants are forced...