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Slow Food Nation: Farmworkers at the table

Schlosser: Food industry abuses workers as matter of course
Posted by Tom Philpott at 12:47 PM on 04 Sep 2008

"Of all the panels I attended at Slow Food Nation's series, the most powerful for me was the one convened by Eric Schlosser on creating a "new, fair food system." It featured labor-rights advocates from California and Florida -- the poles of industrial fruit-and-veg production in the U.S.

Working conditions get little play in sustainable-agriculture discussions. Organic standards make no mention of labor practices; and when foodies swoon over heirloom tomatoes or a fabulous wine, they've learned to obsess over where the fruit was grown -- but they rarely consider the folks who actually picked it.

Schlosser -- author of Reefer Madness (which contains a blistering section on California strawberry pickers) -- is doing his part to change that. Again and again at this massive foodie confab, Schlosser drove home the point: our food industry thrives on nearly unchecked human exploitation. (Watch soon for Grist's interview with him.) Indeed, Schlosser emphasized, the very foods that we're constantly urged to eat more of because they're healthy -- fruit, vegetables, nuts -- are typically grown and harvested under downright brutal conditions."

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