Axios: “The bottom line: Food retailers, which could require their suppliers to join programs like the Fair Food Program or Milk with Dignity, are key to ending widespread forced labor.”
Jon Esformes, CEO of Sunripe Certified Brands and first grower to join the Fair Food Program: “If all retailers joined the Fair Food Program the most egregious criminal behavior would end, and lesser crimes would be quickly uncovered.”
A stunning report in Axios paints a damning picture of widespread farm labor abuse in the US agricultural industry outside the protections of the Fair Food Program.
Yet while federal prosecutions of forced labor operations grow more common in agriculture, many massive food corporations like the grocery giant Kroger continue to turn a blind eye to the extreme abuses of some of the most vulnerable workers at the bottom of their opaque supply chains, according to a shocking report, months in the making, by Richard Collings of Axios. Meanwhile, according to the report, the lack of adequate resources for state and federal authorities to protect farmworkers is only making matters worse, and is likely allowing even more widespread exploitation of the agricultural workers who put food on our tables to go undetected.
Against this backdrop of pervasive abuse, Worker-driven Social Responsibility programs like the Fair Food Program and Milk with Dignity are singled out by Axios as “key to ending widespread forced labor.”
The bullet-pointed report is a must-read. We have included it here below in full to best share its urgent message: Forced labor is an appalling reality in US agriculture today, but there is a proven solution — the unique monitoring and enforcement mechanisms of the Fair Food Program, driven by workers as the frontline monitor of their own rights and backed by the purchasing power of the program’s participating buyers.
While the FFP rapidly expands across the US thanks in part to support from the US Department of Agriculture, its reach must continue to spread even further in order to turn the tide against forced labor. Key to its expansion are the CIW’s legally-binding agreements with participating buyers, who commit to preferentially source from farms that comply with the FFP’s Code of Conduct, and to suspend purchases from farms that are suspended from the program for significant code violations. Those market incentives drive compliance on participating farms and were the force behind the transformation of the Florida tomato industry from “ground zero for modern-day slavery,” in the words of federal prosecutors before the launch of the program in 2010, to what was called the “best workplace environment in US agriculture” by one human rights expert on the front page of the New York Times just three years later.
Kroger, which for years has refused to join the Fair Food Program, has been linked to multiple modern slavery rings in recent years, including perhaps the largest in US history in Operation Blooming Onion. Despite this deplorable track record, Kroger declined to comment when asked by Axios for its response to its reporting. This unconscionable silence puts Kroger squarely on the wrong side of history, and if history has taught us anything, it is this: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
Below is an excerpt of Axios’ report, which can be read in full on our website:
