Fair Food Summit Immokalee

September 15-18, 2011

The Fair Food Summit was three solid days of intense discussions around strategies to escalate the CIW’s Supermarket Campaign. To this point, the Campaign has largely eschewed the more aggressive tactics of the CIW’s earlier battles on the assumption that the obvious appeal of the unprecedented changes underway in the fields today through the Fair Food Program would be sufficient to convince the supermarkets of the value of participation.	The supermarkets’ rejection of the historic opportunity to contribute to real farm labor reforms, however, has fueled indignation among Fair Food activists around the country, and their patience is running out. That rejection was the subject of a piece of popular theater that opened the Fair Food Summit…
… during which CIW members re-enacted the history of the Campaign for Fair Food, the victories and the strategies that overcame the resistance of 9 multi-billion dollar food corporations on the road to the current clash with the supermarket industry.	The Summit continued, as participants worked together to visualize the change they will be working to bring about in the months ahead.
Of course, no Fair Food gathering would be complete without an action…	… and the Fair Food Summit was no exception.
Nearly 100 Summit participants, workers from Immokalee, and local Fair Food activists gathered at a Ft. Myers Publix store for a spirited protest on Saturday morning…	… while a delegation headed inside to take the Campaign for Fair Food demands directly to the local store manager, who promised to convey their concerns to company leaders in Lakeland.
Finally, Sunday afternoon was Independence Party time, and the CIW welcomed members who remained in Immokalee this summer…	… and braved the southwest Florida heat to attend the afternoon party.
Summit participants who remained in Immokalee after the meeting was over addressed the crowd and shared their solidarity with the struggle of the Immokalee community for fairer wages and living conditions.	The Fiesta ended much as the Summit did, with warm feelings of community and great hopes for a more just, more humane food industry to be won sooner, rather than later, based on the simple formula that has already brought about unprecedented change: Consciousness + Commitment = Change.