Join us in celebrating this year’s Farmworker Awareness Week, a national event that brings light to issues facing farmworkers and their families across the country. The annual event is organized by the Student Action for Farmworkers, a support organization that engages youth, students, and communities in increasing awareness of injustice in the agricultural system. The week of action began last Monday, March 24, and continues to next Monday, March 31, with events extending into early April. To find an event near you, check out the listings, follow the Farmworker Awareness Week Facebook page, or peruse #NFAW2014.
How can you get involved?
Support our partners at the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and their Fair Food Program, a groundbreaking model for social responsibility based on a unique partnership among farmworkers, Florida tomato growers, and participating buyers. Started in 2010, the program is a comprehensive, verifiable and sustainable approach to ensuring human rights, better wages and working conditions in Florida’s tomato fields. Visit the CIW website to learn how to take action and call on major tomato purchasers like Publix, Wendy’s, Kroger and Ahold USA to join the Fair Food Program!
Urge the EPA to strengthen their proposed new farmworker safety rules. The safety standards, which were last updated in 1992, are meant to protect workers who use pesticides, but the rules do not go far enough. The proposed standards still allow children under 18 to use chemical pesticides and do not include the requirement to post medical emergency information or where and when pesticides should be applied. WhyHunger shared an article on these new rules in a recent blog post, and now there is an easy way to tell the EPA to make these rules more effective. Send a form letter to the EPA here.
