velocicrafter: occupyallstreets: Whistleblowing Wednesday: Children As Young As Six Harvest 25 Percent of U.S. Crops Knowing the farmer who grows your food has become an important tenet of the modern food movement, but precious little attention is paid to the people who actually pick the crops or “process” the chickens or fillet the fish. U Roberto Romano’s poignant film, The Harvest/La Cosecha (2011), being screened across the country for Farmworker Awareness Week (March 24-29), informs us that nearly 500,000 children as young as six harvest up to 25 percent of all crops in the United States. What’s illegal in most countries is permitted here. Child migrant labor has been documented in the 48 contiguous states. Seasonal work originates in the southernmost states in late winter where it is warm and migrates north as the weather changes. Every few weeks as families move, children leave school and friends behind. If you’ve had onions (Texas), cucumbers (Ohio or Michigan), peppers (Tennessee), grapes (California), mushrooms (Pennsylvania), beets (Minnesota), or cherries (Washington), you’ve probably eaten food harvested by children. This isn’t a slavery issue, or an immigration issue per se. What’s remarkable is that most of the migrant child farmworkers are American citizens trying to help their families. This is a poverty issue and it gets to the heart of what we, as consumers, see as the “right price” to pay for food. Children earn about $1,000 per year for working an average of 30 hours a week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. When you consider that the average annual pay for a migrant family of four is $12,500-$14,500, it’s apparent why some families feel they have no choice but to bring their children into the fields with them. Half of these kids will not graduate from high school because they’re always moving around, perpetuating the cycle of poverty that caused them to be day laborers in the first place. Read More but you guys don’t understand you guys no animals are hurt so it’s still cruelty free you guys! not only do migrant working conditions sicken me, but these are children. um HELLO, most of them don’t even go to school… like no shit they won’t graduate. They’ll also probably live a really short life from all the chemicals they work with or from developing TB from the shacks they live in.
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    Goddamnit
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    This has been going on for decades since the 1920’s at least. Latinos and displaced Dustbowlers in 1930s, Braceros in...
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    Read this properly. These are mostly AMERICAN children harvesting your vegetables. This is not about immigration, it’s a...
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    [Image description: A young brown-skinned girl, standing in the middle of a bleak farm field, holds a bulging sack of...
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