
{"id":14560,"date":"2010-12-16T13:40:26","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T18:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=14560"},"modified":"2010-12-16T13:40:26","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T18:40:26","slug":"the-%e2%80%98harvest-of-shame%e2%80%99-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/12\/16\/the-%e2%80%98harvest-of-shame%e2%80%99-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcHarvest of Shame\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 continues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bart Evans<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nWhile the modern landscape of North Carolina agriculture may not, at first glimpse, look very \u00e2\u20ac\u0153modern,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d many of our local growers are, in fact, now operating in a new global agribusiness paradigm.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true that many of the same crops are still grown on the same land, using many of the same methods. They are still planted by hand, and harvested by hand, as they have been since the time slaves were doing that work. But don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get caught up in nostalgic notions of the preservation of small, family farms \u00e2\u20ac\u201c today the name of the game is, overwhelmingly global, agribusiness: factories in the fields.<\/p>\n<p>This is illustrated by the new effort to market the North Carolina sweet potato to European supermarkets. As recently reported by the Associated Press, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the value of exports to the United Kingdom jumped from $5.7 million to $20.4 million between 2005 and 2009, and in the first six months of 2010 exports were on pace to comfortably exceed last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s total, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Further evidence of this shift can be seen in the sustained, heavy reliance by local farms on a vulnerable, immigrant workforce from the global south.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been half a century since Edward R. Murrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <em>Harvest of Shame<\/em> documentary aired on CBS, revealing the plight of migrant field workers and making a strong call to civil society for change. Murrow highlighted the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153backwardness\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the extreme, systemic poverty of field workers, asking us how, in this great, modern nation, could this be happening? And 50 years later, the agricultural industry is still just as important to our national and state economies. Yet it still relies on a system of vulnerable, exploitable workers to hand-harvest crops. Murrow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concerns clearly have still yet to be addressed.<\/p>\n<p>The global forces affecting North Carolina agriculture nonetheless offer new challenges and new opportunities to address some of the age-old problems that continue to exploit and degrade the environment and workers. Indeed, as agribusiness reaches out to new markets, it also changes the distribution of power within the system.<br \/>\nFor example, if North Carolina growers wish to market their sweet potatoes to a European market, they will have to meet new health and safety standards of the European supermarket chains. This is one example of new possibilities for points of leverage, to again force the question of how can this be happening <em>here<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Recently, the Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN), held a series of events around North Carolina to kick off the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Harvest of Dignity\u00e2\u20ac\u009d campaign, which seeks to improve the laws protecting farmworkers. FAN is a coalition of organizations that work with farmworkers directly or work around issues affecting them.<\/p>\n<p>The group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s message is simple and straightforward: 50 years is far too long to wait for change. Change is badly and outrageously overdue, even more so now in the new, global agriculture system. And while many would agree that a complete overhaul is what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s truly needed, what workers are asking for is relatively quite plain and simple: just the basics.<\/p>\n<p>Safe places to work: Enact basic health and safety standards to protect field and poultry workers from injury, illness and toxic chemical exposure on the job. <\/p>\n<p>Safe places to live:\u00c2\u00a0Require employer-provided housing to be safe, sanitary and provide for basic decency, such as privacy in bathrooms and locks on the doors.<\/p>\n<p>Better enforcement of existing laws:\u00c2\u00a0Require state agencies to work together to enforce our state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s current laws protecting field and poultry workers. <\/p>\n<p>So, during this holiday season as you come together to celebrate over shared family meals, remember to thank the workers here in North Carolina who harvested your sweet potatoes, or worked on the line processing your turkey, that still do not have the basic rights that most workers take for granted.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to stand in solidarity with these people to demand that 50 years is enough.<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nBart Evans is coordinator of the N.C. Farmworkers Advocacy Network. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the modern landscape of North Carolina agriculture may not, at first glimpse, look very \u00e2\u20ac\u0153modern,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d many of our local growers are, in fact, now operating in a new global agribusiness paradigm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14560"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14665,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14560\/revisions\/14665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}