Every day, over two million farmworkers labor in U.S. fields to harvest the food we eat. Whether it is a 4th of July cookout or a Wednesday family dinner, we all rely — every single day — on the back-breaking work of farmworkers, who far too often are forced to endure dangerous, and harshly exploitative, conditions. Working at a break-neck pace without shade from the sun, workers are exposed to everything from wage theft and pesticide poisoning to sexual harassment and assault — with few to no consequences for abusers. At worst, some farmworkers are even subjected to modern-day slavery in the fields where our produce is grown and harvested.
But there is hope! For nearly 15 years, the Fair Food Program has provided tens of thousands of farmworkers the power they need to stand up to abusive farm bosses and end longstanding human rights violations on farms across the country. And now you can help us write a new chapter in the history of human rights in the U.S. — and the rest of the world — by joining thousands of other Sustainers in making a monthly donation to the Fair Food Program as the FFP prepares to double in size domestically, and expand to countless new fields and greenhouses overseas.
Together, farmworkers and consumers have blazed a path to fundamentally transform agriculture. The success of the Fair Food Program has proven that a model for change that is driven by workers and backed by market enforcement has the power to transform the agricultural industry. The proof of concept is a now familiar story, documented a decade ago in the Florida tomato industry: from “ground zero for modern-day slavery”, in the words of a federal prosecutor in 2008, to “the best working environment in American agriculture,” in the words of a labor expert in the New York Times, just a few seasons later. And now the next chapter will be all about expansion of the gold standard human rights program we all built, together.
Now, as the Fair Food Program celebrates over a decade of proven success, it is rapidly expanding across the US with support from the US Department of Agriculture, and across the globe with support from the Department of Labor. And while this historic growth unfolds, we will rely more than ever on financial support from the consumer allies who have been with us every step of the way — the Fair Food Nation — from the early protests twenty years ago in front of Taco Bell’s headquarters in Irvine, CA, to the recent launch of a massive new Fair Food Program farm in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.
To expand our own capacity to meet this moment, we are asking for all those who can afford to do so, to become a Fair Food Program Sustainer and set up a recurring donation of $10 or more per month to the Program. That’s just about 35 cents a day, for an end to sexual harassment and assault, wage theft, dangerous working conditions and even modern-day slavery for tens of thousands of our country’s hardest workers.
And if you are already a Sustainer, we are asking that you consider increasing the amount given each month, so your support can expand in step with the work at hand.
Over the next 3 days, we are going to amplify the voices of farmworkers by sharing firsthand accounts from farmworker staff members of the CIW on their experiences with climate change, sexual misconduct, and wage theft, and share how the Fair Food Program protects farmworkers from all these scourges and more.
To continue this work and to expand it into new fields nationwide and across the globe, we need your help to reach more farmworkers with the critical protections of the Fair Food Program!
Stay tuned to hear from CIW staff members in the coming days!