Campaign for Fair Food in the news!

Chris Hedges, Frances Moore Lappe, Eric Schlosser all write about CIW Campaign in space of a week…

Three of our era’s leading authors in the field of social justice wrote pieces this week on the CIW and the Campaign for Fair Food.

Two of the articles, Frances Moore Lappe’s “The Food Movement: Its Power and Possibilities,” and Eric Schlosser’s “It’s Not Just About Food,” appeared in the Nation magazine’s annual Food Issue. Both were reflections on the food movement on the 50th anniversary of the publishing of Lappe’s seminal book, Diet for a Small Planet. Lappe writes:

“Some Americans see the food movement as “nice” but peripheral—a middle-class preoccupation with farmers’ markets, community gardens and healthy school lunches. But no, I’ll argue here. It is at heart revolutionary, with some of the world’s poorest people in the lead, from Florida farmworkers to Indian villagers. It has the potential to transform not just the way we eat but the way we understand our world, including ourselves. And that vast power is just beginning to erupt.” read more

The third, “Tomatoes of Wrath” by Chrisopher Hedges, was published by TruthDig.com and was widely disseminated throughout the blogosphere by sites like CommonDreams.org and Truthout.org. It focused exclusively on the Campaign for Fair Food and, in particular, on Trader Joe’s. Here’s an excerpt, in which he quotes the CIW’s Gerardo Reyes:

“’Supermarkets, such as Trader Joe’s, insist they are responsible and fair,”’ Reyes goes on. ‘They use their public relations to present themselves as a good corporation. They sell this idea of fairness, this disguise. They use this more sophisticated public relations campaign, one that presents them as a friend of workers, while at the same time locking workers out of the discussion and kicking us out of the room. They want business as usual. They do not want people to question how their profits are created. We have to fight not only them but this sophisticated public relations tactic. We are on the verge of a systemic change, but corporations like Trader Joe’s are using all their power to push us back.'” read more

All three are great reads. Check them out if you get a free minute! Thanks, and check back again soon for more of the very latest news from the fields in Florida.