Food Day

October 24 was Food Day. Somehow, I missed it. I missed it because I was preoccupied snuggling my sweet little niece and nephew. Since I missed this very important day I am celebrating today. What is Food Day? Food Day happens every year on October 24 and not only encourages people to make healthy changes in their diets but also to take action to solve food-related problems in our communities at the local, state, and national level. This year Food Day was focused around food justice and farm workers.

While I was in undergrad I was busy developing pretentious but naive worldviews that came crashing down the moment I graduated. I was devoted to a variety of social justice movements but I must have slept through the lecture of food issues. I’m not sure how that happened. I grew up in an area where the majority of the population are either farm workers or food service workers. But somewhere I missed the connection between what I ate and the effects it had on others.

It took moving to Guatemala for me to see and understand the importance of food issues. When I moved back to the States the first lifestyle change I made was in my diet and the way I viewed food. The first breakdown I had was in the supermarket when I became utterly overwhelmed by all the stuff. As I looked at the food I thought about all the farm workers who contributed to those products. I thought about their working and living conditions and the never-ending cycle of modern day slavery. I thought about all the energy being used in the overly air-conditioned building with it’s too bright lights. I thought about the underpaid employees of the store. If there was a swooning couch in that store I would have gracefully swooned while dramatically throwing my arm over my eyes. Instead I ran out to the car cried with a snotty, runny nose. Much less graceful but equally dramatic. So I changed the way I viewed and bought food in the United States.

Supermarkets make it easy for us to forget all the work that goes into growing our food. We forget to think about the millions of farmworkers who allow us to eat. Essentially, we forget about the people who nourish and provide us with life. Farm workers are invisible in our society despite the fact that there are about three million farm workers concentrated in California, Texas, Washington, Oregon, Florida, and North Carolina. Farm work is the eighth lowest paid job in the country. Workers make an average income between $10,000 and $12,500 per year even though farm work is one of the most dangerous occupations. Farm workers are also among the most exploited in the U.S., which is not solely due to the fact that more than half of all farm workers are undocumented. Farm workers have to endure wage theft, sexual harassment, intimidation, and in some cases, physical beatings.

I am so grateful for these human beings that provide our nation with fruits and vegetables. Gratitude has always been an important binding factor in my life. It helps me empathize with people. I have to visualize their suffering and feel compassion and humility. Often I feel angry and other times overwhelmingly sad. No matter which emotion is evoked I am filled with a need to act. In different situations those actions vary, but today I want to support the rights of farm workers.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) is a pretty inspiring organization. CIW has a Fair Food Program where participating corporations pay an extra penny per pound for their tomatoes, which doubles the wages of workers who pick the fruit. It also demands a Code of Conduct in the fields, which ensures the human dignity of each worker. The Fair Food Program has six main elements which you should check out here along with other ways you can take action on behalf of those workers that allow the rest of the nation access to food.

There are so many ways we as individual consumers can make small or larger changes that have far-reaching impacts. We can support farm workers that work on large farms and we can support our small local farmers. We can chose foods that are environmentally sustainable. We can cut back on certain foods that are bad for our own health and the health of others. These actions bind us to others and humble us. They unite us as human beings and make us more caring and consciousness individuals.