Over 100 farmworkers and their allies make their way from Pahokee to Palm Beach on Day one of the Build a New World March. The globe at the head of the march, illuminated by the sun representing the Fair Food Program, remains divided into two worlds: one filled with the light of fair working conditions, human rights education on farms, regular audits, and the freedom to complain about conditions without fear of retaliation; the other a world beyond the light of the Fair Food Program where workers are subject to abuses from sexual harassment to violence and even forced labor.
Congratulations go out to NPR/WGCU’s Eileen Kelley and Andrea Melendez who recently received the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists’ prestigious 2023 award for best political reporting for their coverage of the CIW’s March for Farmworker Freedom!
Kelley: “They came to America in search of a better life. The work in the agricultural fields of Florida they knew would be tough. But it was much worse than that. And so they spoke out during a 50-mile march.”
In the pre-dawn hours of March 14 of last year, over 100 farmworkers and their allies packed their bags, left their homes, and made their way to the small, agricultural community of Pahokee, Florida, for Day 1 of the 5-day, 50-mile March to Build a New World.
There, outside a forced labor camp surrounded by barbed, NPR local member station’s Eileen Kelley and Andrea Melendez met and spoke with those who were preparing to march.
With the labor camp as the launch point for their historic march, the marchers set off and were soon enveloped in sprawling sugarcane fields as far as the eye could see. Kelley and Melendez accompanied the marchers on that first day and captured the spectacular action with beautiful visuals and moving text and testimonials from the marchers. The goal of the long trek was to celebrate the Fair Food Program’s unparalleled success in transforming the agricultural industry, and to call on those corporate holdouts — Kroger, Wendy’s, and Publix chief among them — to finally join the Presidential Medal-winning program and help expand the FFP’s proven human rights protections to thousands of more farmworkers in their supply chains.
For their tireless efforts and incisive reporting of our historic march for farmworker freedom, Kelley and Melendez won the Florida Association of Broadcast Journalists’ prestigious 2023 award for best political reporting! We know you will join us in congratulating them both for this great achievement!
To commemorate this award, we are sharing their coverage of last year’s march. To see the full coverage, including spectacular audio and wonderful photos we unfortunately cannot re-share, click here for the day 1 recap and here for the final day article.
Kelley and Melendez have been thoughtfully covering the Immokalee community and CIW for many years. For more of their coverage of the CIW, check out their article on the 2024 Farmworker Freedom Festival, as well as the FFP’s expansion both domestic and international.
Here below is the day 1 article text followed by an excerpt from the final day article. Enjoy!
Over 100 start march across Florida to protest modern slavery in the agricultural fields
By Eileen Kelley and Andrea Melendez/WGCU Investigative Team
Current and former farmworkers, allies and religious leaders are marching across a large swath of Florida.
They are calling on retail food giants like Wendy’s, Publix and Kroger to join the Fair Food Program, a human-rights initiative that many of their competitors joined over a decade ago.
Some 100 people headed off Tuesday, marching in pairs along rural roads in the south-central Florida agricultural town in Pahokee.
Over several days, these mostly current or former farmworkers as well as their families, will continue to push east, carrying banners calling for human rights, until they reach the island of Palm Beach.
In late December, Bladimir Moreno, the owner of Los Villatoros Harvesting, a labor contract company, was sentenced to nine years in federal prison for federal racketeering and operating a forced labor camp in Pahokee.
Workers were denied promised wages, held at gun point and kept behind barbed-wire fences at night. Two men did escape in the trunk of a vehicle and raced south to Immokalee, a place once well-known for decades to be Ground Zero for modern slavery.
But a movement that began in 1993 with the creation of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has nearly eradicated these harsh labor camps where migrant workers come in search of an opportunity to feed to families back home.
The workers held demonstrations and hunger strikes to draw attention to inhumane conditions in the tomato fields. But more, organizers say, was needed.
Farmworkers and allies marched for 50 miles over 5 days in 2023 to celebrate the FFP and demand Wendy’s, Kroger, and Publix join the program
Participating retail giants such as McDonald’s, Burger King, Walmart, and Trader Joes agreed to only do business with growers that adhere to a code of conduct which outlines protections for farmworkers.
Such protections are as simple as providing water and agreeing that sexual misconduct will not be tolerated.
Newly arriving workers are trained about their rights and the growers are audited by a third party.
Another cornerstone is pay.
The retailers agree to paying roughly one penny more per pound to the grower. That money in turn is given to workers in the form of a bonus.
To date $40 million has been re-distributed impacting some 30,000 workers each season.
As it is now, workers make about 65 cents for each 32-pound bucket they harvest.
The additional bonuses are critical and fair, farmer and advocate like Matt Montavan of Sarasota said.
He said he’s marching, for the rights of the farmworkers, for the end of slavery in the fields and for justice.
“I think we have to respect where our food comes from and to (give) justice to the people that harvest it for us,” Montavan said.
He had this to say to Wendy’s, Publix, and Kroger: “It’s time to join the program and do justice to the people that bring your food to your stores.”
The march will end on Saturday in Palm Beach, where Wendy’s chairman of the board Nelson Peltz lives.
In a written statement, a spokesperson said since 2019 Wendy’s North American tomato supply is exclusively from indoor, hydroponic greenhouse farms, whereas the Fair Food Program revolves largely around outdoor, more traditional tomato fields.
Wendy’s said the company has a code of conduct that it requires of its suppliers to adhere and there is also a third party review. Over the years, the Coalition of Immokalee Worker says it has asked for transparency about Wendy’s stated business practices but it has not been provided details.
Gerardo Reyes Chavez, a farmworker and organizer for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers said it is time for the hold-outs to join the program: “This is not a problem of the farmworkers, this is a problem of society. We all benefit from the meals, from the food that ends up on our tables.”
Hundreds more are expected to join the marchers in Palm Beach on Saturday.
And here is the final day’s article:
They marched to end modern day slavery in the agricultural fields
They came to America in search of a better life. The work in the agricultural fields of Florida they knew would be tough. But it was much worse than that. And so they spoke out during a 50-mile march.
They gathered in Pahokee near an old inn where not too long ago people who looked like them were held captive at night behind locked gates strung with barbed wire.
It was a Tuesday when the crowd of mostly current and former farmworkers marched down the agricultural roads through the belly of Florida.
After 12 miles they stopped. Picking up where they left off the next morning.
As they got closer to the group’s final destination on the island of Palm Beach, the energy grew.
Along the way, the curious had questions, some eager to learn more about the Fair Food Program, a decade-long initiative where major retailers agree to only do business with growers who provide the farmworkers with humane working conditions.
Under the agreement the growers must allow a Fair Food worker to come to the farms and camps and inform the workers of their rights. The growers must also allow for routine inspections where workers can freely tell investigators about the working conditions. If the growers won’t adhere to these guidelines, the retailers must agree to take their business elsewhere.
farmworkers and allies carry the world illuminated partially by the light of the Fair Food Program, in a 5-day, 50-mile march across Florida in order to urge Wendy’s to join the Program.
The retailers must also agree to pay an additional one penny per pound for tomatoes they are buying. This money then comes back to the farmworker in the form of a bonus.
A produce truck led the way from rural roads over a bridge surrounded by yachts and mansions. Jimmy Cliff’s upbeat Reggae Song, “You can get it if you really want” plays in the background as a man blars into the a microphone that modern-day slavery still very much exists fields not associated with the fair food program.
His words are a reason they march.
Lupe Gonzalo was 20 and far from her home in Guatemala when she learned the promise of a better life in the agricultural fields of Florida was tantamount to a lie.
Rousted from bed around 4 a.m. she’d toil under Florida’s relentless sun picking tomatoes until night fell, arriving back to camp around 8 p.m.
The next morning was same: Grueling work filling one 32-pound bucket of tomatoes after the other without shade breaks or water. She earned about 45 cents for each 32-pound bucket.
Gonzalo did all this, day-in and day-out. She lived in fear of speaking up. But one day, it was just too much. She asked for some water.
