The article by Brown and Getz, Farmworker Food Insecurity…, talks about some of the reasons why farmworkers themselves suffer from food insecurity. The authors discuss some of the potential reasons behind the issue and come to a conclusion that it is more of a political and economic exploitation of labor. In my opinion it is tragic how the people supporting our nation with agricultural practices and ensuring food security to families struggle for food themselves. Factors that help contribute to farmers food insecurity are seasonal employment, wages that are only seeming to decrease, and lack of protection when it comes to legal issues. The authors discuss how low wages are barely enough to support daily needs not to mention access to food. For example, as stated in the text, in California the average farmworker earns as little as $8,500 annually.
Part of the problem with food insecurity is that people won’t look deep enough into the root of the issue. They think the solution is providing more food-to-food deserts, and although that can be helpful it won’t help the long-term issue. We need to implement policies that will protect our farmworkers to maintain a stable source of food and will that come fair pay.
I think this article does a great job critiquing the modern farmworker food insecurity issue. It is an attention-grabbing article because of how shocking and unjust the agricultural system is in the US. It makes me wonder how people earn so much more money for basically nothing when jobs like a being a farmer can cost people their lives and they don’t get compensated correctly for the amount of work they do. It will go a long way if consumers start to understand the reality of our food systems so that change can be made, and people can advocate for better wages.
1 comment:
I think looking deeper into the conditions helps show why just putting more food in food deserts is a superficial band-aid fix. These people are being screwed over in a system, and it got bad enough that they're food insecure. Simply giving them access to food doesn't fix the situation, it just lets people get rid of their guilty conscience and think that things are better now. I strongly agree with your sentiment that consumers need to be made aware of the reality of the system. Just having the public properly understand the entire system would "lubricate" any social change, either by inspiring more people to push for change or by limiting the amount of misunderstandings and manipulations that halt change.
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