Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

Fwd: [Food-news] Us vs. Stem: Workers on organic farms are treated as poorly as their conventional counterparts

Rate this topic


Guest guest

Recommended Posts

> [Food-news] Us vs. Stem: Workers on organic

> farms are treated as

> poorly as their conventional counterparts

>

> www.foodnews.ca

> *

> Editor's Note: As organics go mainstream and

> corporations capitalize on

> niche markets, organic practices move away from the

> founding values of

> the organic movement. In addition to concern for

> corporate pressure to

> dilute organic standards is the treatment of labour.

> Though many make

> the assumption when buying organic that the label

> also implies fair

> working conditions, only one organic farm in the US

> belongs to the

> United Farm Workers Union and generally working

> conditions are as poor

> as for their conventional counterparts. Union

> membership for organic

> workers would further increase the price of the food

> for consumers.

> Thus, some efforts are underway to develop codes for

> fair labour

> practice for organic workers that would fall outside

> a union framework.

> If such a project were successful, some suggest it

> could spread beyond

> organics to the agricultural industry as a whole.*

>

>

>

>

*http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/08/02/mark/*

>

>

> Us vs. Stem: Workers on organic farms are treated

> as poorly as their

> conventional counterparts

>

> By Jason Mark

>

> 02 Aug 2006

>

> When Elena Ortiz found a job on an organic raspberry

> farm after working

> for nine years in conventionally farmed fields, she

> was glad for the

> change. The best part about her new job was that she

> no longer had to

> work just feet away from tractors spraying chemical

> herbicides and

> pesticides. An added bonus was the fruit itself --

> " prettier, " she said,

> and firmer, which made it easier to pick.

>

> Better living without chemicals?

>

> But when it came to how Ortiz was treated by her

> employers, little was

> different. Her pay remained meager: $500 a week at

> peak berry-picking

> season, but as little as $200 a week during much of

> the year, leaving

> her and her farmworker husband with little money to

> buy fruits and

> vegetables for their five children. The supervisors

> at her farm, Reiter

> Berry, were often " aggressive " and capricious. Rules

> were arbitrary;

> workers were sometimes closely monitored, but

> sometimes allowed to work

> independently. They were, said Ortiz, assigned to

> " better or worse rows "

> -- all depending on the whims of the supervisors.

>

> When organizers from the United Farm Workers

> encouraged the Reiter

> employees to form a union, the company allegedly

> responded with

> intimidation and harassment.

>

> " There was an atmosphere of fear. People were afraid

> they would be laid

> off, " Ortiz said in a recent interview. (Elena Ortiz

> is not her real

> name; fearful of losing her job, she spoke only on

> condition of

> anonymity.) " I wish they would treat us better. What

> can the people do?

> Nothing. "

>

> Garland Reiter, one of the co-owners of the company,

> took objection to

> Ortiz's comments. " I think we're a leader in the

> industry, living by

> honesty, openness, and respect, " he said.

>

> Nevertheless, it appears that worker abuse in the

> organic industry is

> widespread.

>

> " There's a common conventional wisdom by a lot of

> consumers, especially

> at the higher-end stores, that just because it's

> organic the workers are

> treated better, " said UFW spokesperson Mark

> Grossman. " And that's simply

> not true. "

>

> That disconnect between reality and public

> perception is of increasing

> concern to farmworker advocates, food activists, and

> some farmers, who

> worry that as the organic sector replicates the

> abusive conditions of

> conventional agriculture, it is sacrificing the

> founding values of the

> sustainable-food movement. The desire to return

> organic to its roots is

> driving a slew of initiatives to develop labor

> standards for organic

> farms. If successful, the new standards would

> establish the organic

> sector as the kind of fully sustainable industry --

> both socially

> responsible and environmentally sound -- that could

> be a model for the

> entire economy.

>

>

> Where Have All the Hippies Gone?

>

> When you go to the supermarket and buy produce or

> packaged goods that

> carry the organic label, you can feel confident that

> the food was grown

> under rigorous environmental standards. The U.S.

> Department of

> Agriculture's organic seal

> <http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/indexNet.htm>,

> which debuted in 2002, is a guarantee that your

> fruits and vegetables

> were cultivated without petroleum-based fertilizers

> or (with rare

> exceptions) synthetic chemicals, and that they

> aren't genetically

> modified. The organic label, however, goes only so

> far. While the seal

> covers a range of environmental practices, it says

> nothing about labor

> conditions.

>

> Although comprehensive studies of conditions on

> organic farms are hard

> to find, complaints like Ortiz's are not uncommon.

> For example,

> Willamette River Organics, one of Oregon's largest

> organic operations,

> has been hit with several lawsuits charging

> violations of minimum-wage

> laws. A Human Rights Watch report

>

<http://www.humanrightswatch.org/reports/2000/frmwrkr/index.htm#TopOfPage>

>

> on the exploitation of adolescent workers said the

> atmosphere at

> Arizona's organic Pavich Farms was " hostile,

> suspicious, " with laborers

> apparently not permitted to speak to inspectors.

> Threemile Canyon, a

> large organic dairy and potato farm in Oregon, faces

> accusations of

> sexual discrimination in its hiring practices.

>

> Workers get no consolation in the form of higher

> wages or better

> benefits, either. According to a report

>

<http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/newsltr/v17n1/sa-1.htm>

> published last

> year by researchers at UC-Davis, a majority of 188

> California organic

> farms surveyed do not pay a living wage or provide

> medical or retirement

> plans. In fact, most organic workers earn the same

> as those in

> conventional fields -- less (adjusted for inflation)

> than they were

> making in the 1970s, when the famous UFW boycotts

> occurred. " The

> exploitative conditions that farmworkers face in the

> U.S. are abysmal --

> it's a human-rights crisis, " said Richard

> Mandelbaum, policy analyst at

> the Farmworker Support Committee. " In terms of wages

> and labor rights,

> there's really no difference between organic and

> conventional. "

>

> If that doesn't seem to fit the organic movement's

> hippie and

> homesteader origins, the incursion of big business

> may be partly to

> blame. Reiter Affiliated Companies, where Ortiz

> works, is a perfect

> example of how the movement has shifted. With

> thousands of employees,

> Reiter is the biggest supplier to Driscoll Berry,

> one of the country's

> largest distributors of strawberries, raspberries,

> and blueberries.

> Driscoll sells both conventionally grown and organic

> berries -- an

> indicator of organic's growing popularity, but also

> a sign of how some

> companies see organic more as a market niche than as

> a broad business

> philosophy.

>

> That niche is now a $14 billion industry in the U.S.

> Giant

> food-processing corporations, seeing opportunities

> for expansion, have

> become major players in the organic industry. For

> example, General Mills

> owns the organic brands Cascadian Farm and Muir

> Glen. Kellogg owns

> Sunrise Organic. Even agribusiness giant ConAgra is

> in on the act,

> recently introducing organic versions of its Orville

> Redenbacher popcorn

> and Hunt's tomato sauce brands.

>

> And while organic's profitability would suggest that

> there is plenty of

> money to pay workers better -- for those so inclined

> -- much of the

> profits go to retailers and wholesalers higher up

> the food chain.

> Raising workers' wages is also complicated by the

> fact that organic

> labor costs are disproportionately high, since such

> operations often

> depend on hand weeding in place of chemical

> herbicides.

>

> Ultimately, paying workers more depends on paying

> farmers more, which

> appears unlikely in a country that has gotten used

> to cheap food

>

<http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/02/22/philpott/>.

> " People look

> down on farmers, " said Tim Vos, one of the co-owners

> of California's

> Blue Heron Farm, which pays its 10 field workers

> about $12 an hour. " If

> you want to pay people well, you need high prices.

> What would it take to

> offer benefits? We would have to almost double our

> prices. "

>

>

> Plea for the Tillerman

>

> Another obstacle toward improving conditions is

> that, simply put, the

> treatment of farm laborers doesn't rate high on most

> people's list of

> concerns. At least, that's the conclusion of a

> recent consumer study

> <http://repositories.cdlib.org/casfs/rb/brief_no5/>

> conducted by

> researcher Phil Howard at UC-Santa Cruz. The survey

> found that workers'

> rights ranked fifth on a list of food-related issues

> that interested

> respondents -- right behind the treatment of

> animals.

>

> Farmer Jim Cochran put it bluntly: " Everybody cares

> about how the bugs

> are treated, but nobody cares about how the workers

> are treated. "

>

> Cochran knows what he's talking about. In 1987, his

> operation, Swanton

> Berry Farm, became the first organically certified

> strawberry grower in

> California. Eleven years later, Swanton became the

> first organic farm to

> sign a contract with the UFW. Today Swanton Berry

> remains the only

> organic farm in the country to have a collective

> bargaining agreement

> with the farmworkers' union. " I like the union

> label, because it means

> that the workers are saying, 'It's OK,' " Cochran

> said.

>

> The 30 workers at Swanton Berry -- who earn between

> $9 and $11 an hour

> -- have a medical plan, a pension plan, holiday pay,

> and subsidized

> housing in a pair of well-kept bunkhouses with a

> view of the Pacific. If

> they need a loan to cover emergency expenses,

> workers can get an advance

> on their paychecks. Once workers have put in 500

> hours on the farm, they

> can begin buying stock in the company.

>

> While Cochran's commitment to social justice is

> laudable, being a union

> farm makes his costs 15 percent higher than those of

> other organic

> growers. Because union certification seems

> unrealistic for the small and

> medium-sized farms that still make up the bulk of

> organic growers, a

> range of organizations is working on proposals to

> create some kind of

> " fair made " label to encourage farmers to adopt

> better labor policies.

>

> At least half a dozen projects are in the works. The

> Rural Advancement

> Foundation International and the Farmworker Support

> Committee have

> enlisted five farms in a pilot project

>

<http://www.cata-farmworkers.org/english%20pages/laborstandardsorg.htm>

>

> demonstrating best labor practices. Growers in

> Canada have started a

> " fair deal " label. The organic soap maker Dr.

> Bronner's is implementing

> fair-trade standards to " improve the livelihoods of

> farmers and

> workers, " while some dairy farmers have come

> together under the

> Wisconsin Fair Trade cheese initiative.

>

> The slew of different programs demonstrates an

> energetic grassroots

> commitment to improving worker treatment. But there

> is a danger that

> having too many separate standards will be confusing

> to consumers and

> cumbersome for growers. So the various interests

> have come together in

> an ad-hoc coalition -- the Domestic Fair Trade

> Working Group -- to

> develop a single set of labor standards, a single

> monitoring process for

> farms, and one seal that consumers can trust to mean

> workers were

> treated right. The draft principles include a living

> wage for

> farmworkers, fair prices for farmers, transparent

> business practices,

> and family farm ownership.

>

>

> Coming Soon-ish to a Supermarket Near You

>

> Of course, another alternative would be to try to

> amend the existing

> USDA organic seal to include labor standards. But

> with advocates already

> busy fighting back efforts by the major food

> processors to loosen the

> organic rules, creating an independent label appears

> the best way to go.

>

> " The government can't lead on this, " said Cecil

> Wright, director of

> local operations at Organic Valley, a cooperative of

> more than 800

> family-owned dairies, ranches, and farms. " We need

> to have the people

> who know what they're doing, who are

> entrepreneurial, to lead. We

> believe that at some point in the future we'll need

> a standard that goes

> above and beyond the USDA label. "

>

> When will that point be? Participants in the

> coalition agree it will be

> at least three years before shoppers can expect to

> see an independent

> label that certifies decent working conditions. In

> the meantime,

> advocates point out that there are a number of steps

> farmers can take to

> make their employees feel more valued. A recent

> report

> <http://www.cirsinc.org/docs/social_equity_long.pdf>

> [PDF] by the

> California Institute for Rural Studies looked at

> best labor practices on

> 12 organic farms and identified several low-cost

> ways for cash-strapped

> farmers to improve workplace conditions. When

> interviewed, farmworkers

> said a slower pace of work, year-round employment,

> free food from the

> farm, flexible schedules, and plain old " respectful

> treatment " would

> make them feel like their work was important.

>

> The stakes are high when it comes to the successful

> creation of a " fair

> labor " organic seal, and the importance of the

> struggle goes beyond the

> tight-knit sustainable-food community. If organic

> farmers can find a way

> to produce food without exploiting either the

> environment or their

> workers, advocates say, they can set an example for

> other industries to

> follow.

>

> " For me, the big issue is in terms of progressive

> movement-building, "

> said Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic

> Consumers Association.

> " It's time to dovetail the health, sustainability,

> and justice

> movements. The potential is incredible. But it's

> going to take some

> real, hard organizing. "

>

> - - - - - - - - - -

>

> /Jason Mark lives and works on an organic farm in

> California, where he

> is researching a book about the future of food. He

> is the coauthor, with

> Kevin Danaher, of /Insurrection: Citizen Challenges

> to Corporate Power

>

<http://www.powells.com/partner/25450/biblio/17-0415946778-0>/./

>

> --

>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> WHO WE ARE: This e-mail service shares information

> to help more people

> discuss crucial policy issues affecting global food

> security.

> The service is managed by Amber McNair of the

> University of Toronto

> in partnership with the Centre for Urban Health

> Initiatives (CUHI) and

> Wayne Roberts of the Toronto Food Policy Council, in

> partnership with

> the Community Food Security Coalition, World Hunger

> Year, and

> International Partners for Sustainable Agriculture.

>

> Please help by sending information or names and

> e-mail addresses of

> co-workers who'd like to receive this service, to

> foodnews. To or , please

> visit http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/food-news.

>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

>

> >

 

http://www.meetup.com

http://torontolinkup.com

http://www.geocities.com/whalesong17/welcome.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_____________

food-news mailing list

food-news

http://list.web.net/lists/listinfo/food-news

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...