• Tuesday, May 15, 2012
• Inter Press Service

'One U.S. Attorney has called these fields (referring to tomato fields) 'ground zero for modern slavery.' Over the past 15 years, 9 major investigations and federal prosecutions have freed over 1,200 Florida farm-works from captivity and forced labor', according to the Fair Food Standard Council's brochure.

Reverend Noelle Damico spoke on behalf of the Presbyterian Hunger Campaign at the Advancing Farm Workers' Rights in the Corporate Food Supply Chain forum last week, in which she commented, that tomato field workers prior to the implementation of the Fair Food programme were considered to be modern day slaves because of below poverty level earnings and limited to non existent work protection.

The Fair Food programme allows tomato farm field workers pay increases for their work and the pay increase is paid to the field workers through a premium paid by the buyers; zero tolerance for forced labor and child labor, worker-to-worker education sessions conducted by the Coalition of Immokalee Worker's during work time so the workers understand their rights, end to overfilling buckets, shade in the fields, anonymous phone lines that each field worker can give anonymous tips about the grower's facility and treatment without being penalized as an individual, time clocks to count all hours and ongoing auditing of the farms to insure compliance with the programme.

The programme was created by the Coalition of Immokalee Worker's, which is a community based organization that began in 1993 in areas surrounding Immokalee, Florida, but has expanded to southern Florida and has about 4,000 field worker members that are predominantly Latino, Mayan Indian and Haitian immigrants; the organization now works to expose other modern-day slavery rings and human trafficking within the agriculture community.

The Fair Food programme is monitored by the Fair Food Standards Council which oversees the implementation of the FFP as an outside organization that is interested in benefiting workers and growers. About 90% of growers participate in the Fair Food Programme and as a whole group employ about 30,000 workers during tomato season and between 80,000 and 100,000 workers over the course of the year. Participating buyers of the programme are the following: Yum Brands, McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Compass Group, Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe's, Aramark, Sodexo, Bon Appetit and Management Co. and through their participation the growers have been able to pass down the premiums to the farmers to receive bonus's in their pay check that in the last couple of years has amounted to be over $4 million.

This programme has changed the tomato industry and is encouraging other agriculture industries to change their current system and implement something similar to the tomato farm standard.

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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