From HuffingtonPost.com, Kerry TruemanCo-founder, EatingLiberally.org, 29 Feb 2012. Tracie McMillan’s The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table takes us on a vivid and poignant tour of a place we don’t really want to go: the mostly hidden, sometimes horrible world of the workers who form the backbone … Continue reading
From OregonLive.com, Dana Tims, The Oregonian , 27 Feb 2012. FOREST GROVE — A continued downturn in the region’s housing market is producing an unexpected upside in the form of 24 new apartments dedicated for farmworkers. Officials at Bienestar, a nonprofit organization based in Hillsboro, held a groundbreaking ceremony today for Juniper Gardens, a $5 million project … Continue reading
From PulitzerCenter.org, Kate Furgurson, 25 Feb 2012. After the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction failed to agree upon a framework for the 2012 Farm Bill, farmers, corporations, laborers and consumers alike are anxiously waiting to see how the bill will impact their businesses and their lives. The Farm Bill allocates hundreds of billions of … Continue reading
From AgWeb.com, Jim Dickrell, Dairy Today Editor, 27 Feb 2012. After 2012 elections, reform might be possible The bad news, if it’s even news, is that national, comprehensive immigration reform isn’t going to happen this year. That was the consensus of a panel of experts at the Colorado Farm Show in Greeley last month. Participating … Continue reading
From SpinningSpoons.com, Michelle Venetucci Harvey, 16 Feb 2012. We hear a lot about immigration and agriculture, and how immigrants are taking Americans’ jobs, but it’s never that easy, is it? In an EcoFarm Conference session panel titled “The Farmworkers’ Journey,” Dr. Ann López spoke about her research, work with farmers and farmworkers, and introduced us to two California … Continue reading
From Latino.FoxNews.com, Lloyd Sowers, 22 Feb 2012. Despite high unemployment in the Tampa Bay area, strawberry farmers in Plant City say they’re having trouble finding workers. “These berries don’t turn on and off with a light switch. We have to harvest them the day they’re ready,” said Carl Grooms, owner of Fancy Farms. Grooms is … Continue reading
From CapitalPress.com, Associated Press, 22 Feb 2012. MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A group of Mexican farm workers and several dairy farmers have testified in support of a guest worker program for the estimated 1,500 to 2,000 immigrants who work on Vermont’s dairy farms. The bill before the Senate Agriculture Committee would create state IDs for … Continue reading
From SFBG.com, Dick Meister, 20 Feb 2012. Dick Meister, former Labor Editor of SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. He’s co-author of “A Long Time Coming: The Struggle To Unionize America’s Farm Workers.” Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns. … Continue reading
From Yakima-Herald.com, David Lester, 18 Feb 2012. ELLENSBURG — More Washington farmers are expected to turn to a federal foreign guest worker program out of concern that last fall’s labor shortage will only get worse in 2012, employer advocates say. And Washington’s agriculture director said he believes solving agriculture’s labor needs through comprehensive immigration reform … Continue reading
From LakeCoNews.com, Lake County News, 17 Feb 2012. WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Mike Thompson (CA-1) is leading a group of representatives in calling on President Obama to protect the U.S. agricultural workforce from a harmful “enforcement-only” approach to immigration reform. In a letter to the president, Thompson and his colleagues in the House wrote that … Continue reading
