Two excellent articles look at gains for women farmworkers under Fair Food Program…

[hupso_hide][hupso title=”Welcome to the tomato fields of Florida. Welcome to the future.” url=”the URL”]

“Welcome to the tomato fields of Immokalee, Florida. Welcome to the future.”

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Two recent articles turned the spotlight on the changing conditions for women in Florida’s tomato fields thanks to the Fair Food Program, and they both came away impressed with what they found.

The first, entitled “For women farmworkers of Immokalee NOW IS THE TIME!,” begins by setting today’s exciting changes against the backdrop of the CIW’s two decades of organizing:

In Florida’s tomato fields, and across the United States, women tomato pickers and farmworkers – such as Lupe GonzaloSilvia PerezNely Rodriguez, and scores of others – are organizing a quiet revolution, by waging a raucous, joyous, ferocious struggle. Welcome to the tomato fields of Immokalee, Florida. Welcome to the future.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has been organizing, representing, testifying, winning and consolidating farmworkers’ power for twenty-one years. In that time, the organization itself has matured. A key part of its growth has been the formation of the Immokalee Women’s Group and the recognition of women as a central sector in the struggle for farm worker’s rights, dignity, and power.

And the article just gets better from there.  Check it out in its entirety here.

The second piece is entitled, “Growing Pains:  Why Labor Is the Real Food Movement We Should Be Paying Attention To,” and it too is an extremely well-written examination of the future of a more modern, more humane agricultural industry being built in Florida’s tomato fields today:

bitch… Field labor, which includes growing, picking, and packing the produce we consume ourselves or feed to animals, also entails harsh and gruesome conditions. Laborers—often migrant laborers—work long hours without access to basic employment protections like overtime, minimum wage, shelter from poor weather, and sometimes necessities like water and shade. California’s legislature ordered farmers to provide access to water and shade for their employees in 2012, only to have Governor Jerry Brown kill the bill.

Female farmworkers face particularly horrific conditions. Strawberry fields in Salinas, California, are known as the “fields of the panties” for the sexual assault that occurs between the rows, according to research conducted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Many women work knowing that sexual assault from overseers effectively comes with the job, and that resisting sexual assault from a supervisor could mean being fired and replaced with another who needs the work.

“Women often felt there wasn’t any recourse,” says former farmworker Guadalupe Gonzalo of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) of the sexual assault rampant on U.S. farms. “They felt there weren’t any protections from that kind of abuse. Scared. Scared to say anything—had they spoken up, they would have lost their jobs for bringing up such a complaint.” In a nation with labor laws supposedly designed to prevent this very thing, its prevalence is a testimony to the lower social status of farmworkers. 

Read the rest of this great article here (and just a word before you click — the name of the journal is “Bi*#h”, only without the *#, and it’s written in rather large letters at the top of the page, so be forewarned…).

Have a great weekend, and come back soon for more from the front in the ever advancing Campaign for Fair Food!