Take Florida off the list

of places to buy produce from.

Seriously.

Gourmet magazine had a great long indepth article about this, (just the point when it started getting good and CN pulled the plug) but here's a short brief bit.

How can anyone seriously force someone to work under those conditions? Treating a fellow human being as cruelly as possible. If these salves were animals PETA would be protesting and picketing and all the celebrities would be championing the cause. But no. These are people, people being abused, beaten, starved and forced to work long hours for no pay. And few people know about it and no one seems to be able to stop it. Why? Because the agriculture of Florida would come crashing down without free labor.

Hmmm. Well maybe if fucking SHOULD come crashing down. Then build it the fuck back up PROPERLY and sustainably. If you can't make money growing tomatoes or oranges without free slave labor to harvest the crop, well, fuck raise your price or grow something you can harvest with a machine. OR better yet - make a fucking machine to do the work. Sure, it costs money and all that, and slaves? They are cheap, free. Who cares, right? I mean food is just a commodity, if the chain restaurants can't buy stuff cheap then they can't make as much of a profit and then the CEOs might have to sell one their private jets or third or fourth houses. But as long as people keep buying their product made with slave labor, who cares.

That isn't to say the whole state is farmed by slaves. But still many of those those that aren't 'slave' farmed are often migrant workers who aren't paid much at all and really aren't treated much better.

But well, you know, people need to be able to buy a tomato this time of year. And god forbid Chipotle doesn't have diced tomatoes for their burritos or salads. Granted Chipotle does many things right, raising the bar, but why leave the bar where you can step on the backs of these slaves picking your tomatoes to stay ahead?

When the clothing industry is shown to use Child labor there is a backlash. Buy shoes made by 8 year old kids? No way. right? Buy an Apple iPhone made with 12 year old child labor? No way. Oh wait, iPhones are like food, can't pick and choose to buy stuff not using slave or child labor. Food is easy to turn and look the other way, we want what we want. If someone wants to make a caprese salad this time of year? Well they need fresh tomatoes. Can't deprive them of their right to make a seasonal salad out of season. I should shut up i suppose.

Yes, there are farmers who make a difference, who do pay their workers more and who support the work of CIW.

Not all farmers are bad. But hey, how do you know that the tomato or orange you are buying was picked by a willing and free hand?

that's the question... where are you spending your money... and who are you supporting?

Maybe everyone is aware of what is going on down there. I have been but it takes finding an article like the first one I linked to wake me up.