Hunger and Poverty - Increase Wages for Food and Farm Workers

Farm workers, food processors and restaurant workers are among the most poorly paid in the country — they need a living wage, benefits, protection from wage theft, better working conditions and effective unions.
~ from Ten Things to Reduce Hunger and Provide Good Food For All in The Nation ~

Food. It's one of those things human beings need not only to survive but flourish. We don't NEED Nikes, IPods, perfume, drones or hedge funds, but we DO need food.

So, why is it that we treat so poorly the people who farm, process and serve one of the elemental things of human life? Why do we celebrate and throw money at athletes, movie stars, politicians and corporate CEOs -- people who furnish nothing more than diversions?

Farm workers are some of the hardest working people I know. They toil away 5, 6 and, sometimes, 7 days per week in the broiling sun. Many spend their days bending over, standing up, bending over, standing up for up to 12 hours per day. They routinely are exposed to a witches' brew of toxic chemicals. And most of them do all of this for far less than minimum wage!

Since food is so vital to human life, we should revere these workers, not constantly denigrate them!! One way we could show our undying appreciation for all they do is to pay them a living wage, so they actually could afford to eat the very crops they pick!!!

Some people might suggest that paying farm workers a living wage would increase hunger and poverty for the general population because prices for food would shoot up appreciably. While I will agree there is SOME truth to this assertion, I would like to note that, over the past decade, food prices have increased significantly, but farm worker pay has not. So, there are other factors at work here.

The biggest factors in the increase in food prices concerns market speculation, transportation costs and the middlemen taking larger and larger chunks from the food profit pie. We could decrease two of these three factors and give that money to the farm workers and others responsible for bringing our food to our tables.

That would be the moral (or ethical) solution.

To read the introduction to this mini-series, go here.