therefore I am

fukanzu:

qbits:

occupyallstreets:

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Children As Young As Six Harvest 25 Percent of U.S. Crops
Knowing the farmer who grows your food has become an important tenet of the modern food movement, but precious little attention is paid to the people who actually pick the crops or “process” the chickens or fillet the fish. U Roberto Romano’s poignant film, The Harvest/La Cosecha (2011), being screened across the country for Farmworker Awareness Week (March 24-29), informs us that nearly 500,000 children as young as six harvest up to 25 percent of all crops in the United States.
What’s illegal in most countries is permitted here. Child migrant labor has been documented in the 48 contiguous states. Seasonal work originates in the southernmost states in late winter where it is warm and migrates north as the weather changes. Every few weeks as families move, children leave school and friends behind. If you’ve had onions (Texas), cucumbers (Ohio or Michigan), peppers (Tennessee), grapes (California), mushrooms (Pennsylvania), beets (Minnesota), or cherries (Washington), you’ve probably eaten food harvested by children.
This isn’t a slavery issue, or an immigration issue per se. What’s remarkable is that most of the migrant child farmworkers are American citizens trying to help their families. This is a poverty issue and it gets to the heart of what we, as consumers, see as the “right price” to pay for food.
Children earn about $1,000 per year for working an average of 30 hours a week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. When you consider that the average annual pay for a migrant family of four is $12,500-$14,500, it’s apparent why some families feel they have no choice but to bring their children into the fields with them. Half of these kids will not graduate from high school because they’re always moving around, perpetuating the cycle of poverty that caused them to be day laborers in the first place.
Read More

All the more reason to grow your own and/or shop at your local farmer’s market.

I just wanna qualify the above comment, though. We’ve been through this before; consumer “choice” does not faze the heavy hand of free market capitalism the way you’d like to hope. Growing your own food (which takes time and effort, both of which not always readily available to those with low income) and shopping locally—both of which I still support if within your means, especially the latter!—will not solve this issue. Giving less money to the institutions paying these children would only cause them to cut costs somehow; be it labor (firing the children or paying them less than what little they already receive) or otherwise.
The issue here is the institution of poverty that forces these children to look for jobs to help support their family.
As the article itself argues:

As important as legal rights are, protective legislation may not be the best approach. Migrant families will lose their children’s wages and would be unable to move with available work.
What’s needed is more income paid to laborers for the really hard work. And that’s a hard victory to achieve. It has taken the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food almost 20 years to achieve modest victories in persuading larger commercial purchasers to pay a penny per pound more for Florida tomatoes, and not all have agreed. (One cent equals a pay raise of 40 percent.) It’s a huge start. Despite growers’ complaints of foreign competition undercutting their sales, there’s no evidence that one penny makes a difference to anyone — except, of course, the harvesters.
Americans pay a fantastically low percentage of our income on food — less than in any other country in the developed world and less than we did in 1960. Our very cheap food comes with enormous environmental, social, and public health costs. It’s time to end child field labor by paying adult laborers a wage that is truly decent.

Though the first paragraph is speaking about the flawed approach of simply making it illegal for these children to work, the same logic applies to simply providing these corporations with less money in an attempt to ‘protest’.

qbits:

occupyallstreets:

Whistleblowing Wednesday: Children As Young As Six Harvest 25 Percent of U.S. Crops

Knowing the farmer who grows your food has become an important tenet of the modern food movement, but precious little attention is paid to the people who actually pick the crops or “process” the chickens or fillet the fish. U Roberto Romano’s poignant film, The Harvest/La Cosecha (2011), being screened across the country for Farmworker Awareness Week (March 24-29), informs us that nearly 500,000 children as young as six harvest up to 25 percent of all crops in the United States.

What’s illegal in most countries is permitted here. Child migrant labor has been documented in the 48 contiguous states. Seasonal work originates in the southernmost states in late winter where it is warm and migrates north as the weather changes. Every few weeks as families move, children leave school and friends behind. If you’ve had onions (Texas), cucumbers (Ohio or Michigan), peppers (Tennessee), grapes (California), mushrooms (Pennsylvania), beets (Minnesota), or cherries (Washington), you’ve probably eaten food harvested by children.

This isn’t a slavery issue, or an immigration issue per se. What’s remarkable is that most of the migrant child farmworkers are American citizens trying to help their families. This is a poverty issue and it gets to the heart of what we, as consumers, see as the “right price” to pay for food.

Children earn about $1,000 per year for working an average of 30 hours a week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. When you consider that the average annual pay for a migrant family of four is $12,500-$14,500, it’s apparent why some families feel they have no choice but to bring their children into the fields with them. Half of these kids will not graduate from high school because they’re always moving around, perpetuating the cycle of poverty that caused them to be day laborers in the first place.

Read More

All the more reason to grow your own and/or shop at your local farmer’s market.

I just wanna qualify the above comment, though. We’ve been through this before; consumer “choice” does not faze the heavy hand of free market capitalism the way you’d like to hope. Growing your own food (which takes time and effort, both of which not always readily available to those with low income) and shopping locally—both of which I still support if within your means, especially the latter!—will not solve this issue. Giving less money to the institutions paying these children would only cause them to cut costs somehow; be it labor (firing the children or paying them less than what little they already receive) or otherwise.

The issue here is the institution of poverty that forces these children to look for jobs to help support their family.

As the article itself argues:

As important as legal rights are, protective legislation may not be the best approach. Migrant families will lose their children’s wages and would be unable to move with available work.

What’s needed is more income paid to laborers for the really hard work. And that’s a hard victory to achieve. It has taken the Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Campaign for Fair Food almost 20 years to achieve modest victories in persuading larger commercial purchasers to pay a penny per pound more for Florida tomatoes, and not all have agreed. (One cent equals a pay raise of 40 percent.) It’s a huge start. Despite growers’ complaints of foreign competition undercutting their sales, there’s no evidence that one penny makes a difference to anyone — except, of course, the harvesters.

Americans pay a fantastically low percentage of our income on food — less than in any other country in the developed world and less than we did in 1960. Our very cheap food comes with enormous environmental, social, and public health costs. It’s time to end child field labor by paying adult laborers a wage that is truly decent.

Though the first paragraph is speaking about the flawed approach of simply making it illegal for these children to work, the same logic applies to simply providing these corporations with less money in an attempt to ‘protest’.