Author Archives: kcat9428

Racism in the Food System

Posted on by
14

I’m taking the liberty to focus on the food system and farm workers in Washington State. COVID-19 has served to peel back the layers of an incredibly unjust system. Farm workers, who are largely foreign and undocumented, have now been deemed ‘essential’ employees yet are not afforded basic safety measures. Currently, labor advocacy groups Familias Unidas por la Justicia and the United Farm Workers of America are filing a lawsuit against Washington State’s Health and Labor departments demanding regulated support for these farm workers who are too scared to speak for themselves because doing so could result in their H2-A visas being revoked and/or their information being given to ICE. Washington Health was reported issuing guidance that temporary worker housing facilities with a single room “should assign sick occupants to one side and occupants without symptoms to the opposite side.”

Speaking of housing, simply getting a roof over their heads is a challenge for many foreign farm workers. Not all farms are required to provide housing for their employees depending on the visas issued, and as Benton City has demonstrated, many local residents in farming areas push back hard against supplying farmworker housing. Residents of Benton City were recorded stating that they did not want Benton City to become like Mabton, a mostly Latino community. That was during complaints directed to the US Department of Justice in 2002. To this day residents are fighting against farm worker housing.

Perhaps one of the most telling cases of foreign farm worker discrimination was during the infamous 2018 Sumas Berry Farm case. The farm manager was quoted saying about the foreign farm workers: “They came here to suffer,” and that they were expected to work every day of the week “unless they were on their deathbed.” Despite H2-A visas not having a production quota in WA State, workers on this farm were expected to harvest two boxes of berries every hour or face deportation and paying their own way home. The conditions that brought on the allegations w

Sumas Berry Farm Protests

ere 12 hour shifts in hot, wildfire smokey conditions that led to severe heat stress, poor quality or portioned food, not enough water, expired visas that had yet to be renewed, and the death of a coworker, suspected from aforementioned conditions, which caused 70 employees to go on a one day strike and subsequently get fired. The farm was expected to pay a lawsuit settlement of $149,800, but a judge later cut that settlement cost in half.

These are just three examples of severe injustice and racism faced by foreign farm workers in the US food system, but it’s a systemic problem that infects every part of the country. Until we can strictly enforce basic human rights and regulations in the farming system, these injustices won’t stop. It’s one of the real costs of cheap food.

The Collective is Made of Individuals (Re: Contemplating Climate Complexity)

Posted on by
296

I’m writing in response to Aisling’s post about contemplation, numbness, and the idea that our individual efforts do nothing other than make our personal selves feel better. I’m here to argue against that last point.

She is correct that, numerically speaking, one person doing something isn’t going to matter on a global scale. One person not eating beef isn’t going to eliminate the emissions produced by those cows. One person not getting their driver’s license isn’t going to be noticed by any politician or lobbyist. One person buying fair trade isn’t going to make trade fair.

It takes policy. It takes systemic change. It takes corporate and governmental action. But you know what makes up those corporations and governments? Individual humans. You know what makes up those masses of tens of thousands of protesters? Individual humans. You know what began the Organic Farm Movement in western culture? Individuals. You know who began to advocate women’s rights in the United States? Individual women. And together, those individuals had and have a voice. They have strength. Together, their individual actions created a tidal wave that started an international movement, that changed long-standing laws and discrimination, that brought us to where we are today because if each of those individuals said, “my choices and my voice don’t do anything, so why bother?” then it would have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think we often forget no massive change has happened wide-scale out of nowhere. It grows.

I want to be clear that I’m not saying everyone has the ability to speak and act equally: that’s a part of our inherently exploitative society. But those who have the ability and knowledge shouldn’t be silent because others can’t speak. If anything, we owe it to those who are disadvantaged and silenced to fight for a better future for us all. As a whole, we are not powerless.

How Are You?

Posted on by
1

This is from an in-class contemplative practice we did on 4/14/20. The simple question was: How are you? Karen took us on a guided, grounding meditation, and I felt compelled to journal how this quarter is hitting me, personal realizations, and perhaps questions that might be useful to ask yourself. So, how am I?

I feel better sitting outside. I feel tense with the sounds of machinery. I feel stressed with the rushed pace of classes. I want to move slow, live slow, and breathe. I want to enjoy my life the way I like to enjoy it, not how America trains us to enjoy it. And it isn’t lazy. It’s valuing quality over quantity.

How can I live slowly when classes demand otherwise? Is it possilbe to move slowly through class and still excel? Do I have to keep riving myself along the edge of stress and anxiety? Or can I practic doing what’s asked and no more?

What will happen if I do this quarter my way? Cameras off when I can, outside, listening when necessary. Handing in quality, but not doing excess. Doing work as needed, but taking a break from leading and pushing others to my usual standard.

What if I take a break? Be and become myself: slow, relaxed, and not desperately trying too prove myself but rather being just…fine. What if I stop trying to make everything about impressing people and just take care of myself and be happy? Live for myself. I don’t have to be amazing. What will happen if I live without that stress?

These aren’t normal times. It’s been incredibly hard to check in with myself and try to give myself permission to not push to what’s become a breaking point due to personal struggles right now. Sometimes it’s OK to be OK, and it’s OK to not be OK. We have to take care of ourselves, not just right now, but always.

The Right to Privacy, Free Speech, and a Humane Life

Posted on by
2

The family farm. Rolling green pastures, a red barn, and calves running around with their moms before stopping to suckle. This is where Americans picture their food comes from. What they don’t realize, however, is how many carefully crafted laws there are to keep farming and ranching out of the public eye and away from accusation. I recently went to a family dairy farm. The reality was they owned 3,000 dairy cows, the males sold to an industrial beef farm, the mothers spent 4-5 years standing on wood, sand, and manure before being sold for to an industrial slaughterhouse, and the calves were separated from their mothers the day they’re born.

The news about what is happening and how misleading this industry is gets exemplified through Ag-gag laws. Ag-gag laws are laws that essentially prohbit any recording of what happens on these farms and in slaughterhouses. As per the persecutor’s discretion, filming what happens, even if the footage displays illegal treatment of the animals, can have you tried for terrorism. Many states have begun overturning these ag-gag laws as being unconstitutional due to the first amendment’s freedom of speech as well as offering protection for when abuse is discovered.

https://fernnews-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/01.Slider-Texas-dust.jpg

Yet this year, an article came out on Food and Environment Reporting Network stating that it is now illegal to take drone footage of feedlots in Texas. You are allowed to charter a plane to film, but that is an incredibly expensive venture compared to a drone. The industry argues it is to protect themselves and their private properties. The reporters argue it is still a violation of the first amendment and keeps the public blind to the conditions the animals live in so they don’t have the opportunity to make educated choices when shopping.

What do you think? After reading personal and professional perspectives, do you believe these laws are just? Or do you believe they are in violation of the first amendment and prevent consumers from learning exactly where their food is coming from? Are they there for the small family farmers? Or the industrial agriculturalists who dominate the American meat and dairy market?

Personally, I believe this is just one of the real costs of cheap food.