Kameke: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Exploring the Health of our Modern Food System. It's so great to have all of you here with us virtually. My name is Kameke, and I am the Manager of Social Justice Programs at Farm Sanctuary. I am joined here by Farm Sanctuary's CEO, Megan Watkins, and we have an amazing lineup of speakers for you all today who'll be talking about the health and state of our modern food system and its effects on workers, communities, animals, and the environment, particularly as we are in the midst of a global pandemic.


In many ways, we are experiencing a moment in history that is really exposing the consequences of systemic oppression, injustice, and inequity as witnessed through mass unemployment and economic injustice, racial violence, and health disparities just to name a few. Some industries workers and services, like those within our food system, have been deemed essential, meaning they are considered necessary for ensuring public safety and well-being.


But that then raises the question-- how healthy is our food system for those workers who are considered essential and the people and communities who rely on them? Furthermore, what are the consequences of those conditions for our larger ecosystem, animals, and our planet?


We have four speakers today who will be offering insights from their work and experience to help provide some clarity in response to that question. But before we get started with our speakers, I'll first pass it over to our CEO, Megan Watkins, to share with you all a little bit more about Farm Sanctuary.


Megan: Thank you, Kameke. Thank you all for being with us today. I want to start by talking a bit about Farm Sanctuary as an organization and why this event is important to us and our mission. Farm Sanctuary was founded through an act of compassion. Our co-founders came across a sheep who had been discarded and left for dead. They saw her suffering and took action to provide her with care and sanctuary. They believed that she was deserving of life, freedom, and respect. That discarded sheep, later named Hilda, was the start of Farm Sanctuary and the beginning of the farmed animal sanctuary Movement of today.


Sadly what we've witnessed over the years is that the story of one suffering farm animal is not the exception, but a pattern, and we see that pattern of harm and injustice, of disregard for life, reflected across our food system as a whole. 99% of the 9 billion farm animals raised for food annually in the United States are kept in industrialized facilities known as factory farms. They're treated like products instead of living beings. They're kept tightly confined on concrete flooring with no room to turn around, lie down comfortably, or extend their limbs. They're subjected to painful practices without anesthesia, they incur injuries, they develop illnesses that often are left untreated. They are bred to grow so large that their bodies cannot sustain the weight.


In the last century, factory farms emerged as a response to an increasing demand for food, but what they have become today are large entities driven by profit at the expense of farm animals, communities, workers, and the environment. Industrialized agriculture prioritizes quantity and efficiency, to the point that we're now witnessing the mass killing and disposal of tens of millions of farm animals as a result of COVID-19. The pandemic has further exposed the dangers, cruelty, and ineffectiveness of such an intensive system.


This impact on animals is occurring alongside the disproportionate risks of COVID-19 to agricultural workers and marginalized communities across our country. Farm Sanctuary is a farm animal protection organization, but we know that injustices against animals within our food system are connected to other issues. The patterns of abuse we see in industrial agriculture against animals translate into harmful conditions for the workers inside these facilities, the nearby communities, and all of us on this planet.


Since our inception in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has provided refuge to thousands of farm animals survivors of our food system. We have grown to become a leading national farm animal protection organization with a membership of over 60,000 people who regularly visit our sanctuaries, participate in our education and social justice programs, and take action through our advocacy network. What has drawn so many to the Farm Sanctuary community is the pursuit of a more just and compassionate world, a world where every individual is respected and free from harm.


As an organization providing sanctuary to exploited and oppressed farm animals, our work aligns with a greater mission to fight the very systems that treat human and non-human animals as disposable. The conversation we're having today is an opportunity to listen and learn, in particular, about the perspectives of workers and communities impacted by our food system. It's a chance to broaden our understanding of how we can consistently challenge the larger pattern of harm within our food system for the benefit of all of us.


We are honored to have this inspiring group of leaders with us today, all of whom are working to build a healthier food system: Amanda Hitt, Larry Baldwin, Sindy Benavides, and Gerardo Reyes Chavez, thank you all for the critical work you do, and welcome.


Kameke: Thank you so much, Megan. Now on to our incredible speakers. As mentioned, we will have four speakers presenting to you all today, and then at the end of the event, we will have an opportunity for a roundtable Q&A discussion with all of our presenters, so you'll want to be sure to stick around until the very end so you don't miss out.


Our first speaker is Amanda Hitt. Amanda is the Director of Government Accountability Project's Food Integrity Campaign (FIC). She oversees their operations and is responsible for ensuring that the Food Integrity Campaign fulfills its mission of enhancing food integrity by facilitating truth-telling.


To do this, Amanda works closely with partner organizations, clients, legislators, and the media to alter the balance of power between the food industry and consumers. She acts to protect the rights of those who speak out against the practices that compromise food integrity and to empower whistleblowers and food activists. Amanda has a background in both law and public health. So great to have you with us, Amanda. I'll now turn it over to you. You have to unmute yourself. It's all good.


Amanda: I'm sorry about that. But thank you so much, Kameke, and thank you, Farm Sanctuary, for having me, and most importantly, for having this really important conversation. There's never a better time to have this conversation, but perhaps there is never a more important time given where we are in the world, and that we are looking at issues of social justice not just in a vacuum, but as they affect so much of our society, including our food system.


So when I think about-- when I started this work back in 2009, the interrelatedness was critical to it. This is a pathogen that proliferates in decay. You don't have abuses to animals where you don't have abuses to workers. That's a fact that I-- like I mentioned, I've been doing it for over 10 years, I've never had a worker come to me to blow the whistle and say "They treat workers horribly, but they're wonderful to the animals." I've never had an animal rights advocate say to me that they have a video of animal abuse, but "what a great an environmental steward this corporation is." So it doesn't occur in isolation.


So I'd like to talk a little bit about the work that I do with whistleblowers and hopefully sort of expand that conversation around to truth-tellers, as whistleblowers are often insiders and witnesses to wrongdoings. They come from the corporations, the industry themselves, so they have an understanding not only of the wrongdoing, but they can express where the system failed. So we find these insiders to be critical to exposing what's really going on in our food system, but also the community members. And so I'll touch a little bit on social justice as well.


So I guess first things first is, why are we here and why is a whistleblower organization involved in this conversation? And my main point is, we need to find a way to expose pain without exploiting pain. So I definitely want to share my experience working with whistleblower clients and communities who do the unthinkable and speak the truth. So starting with that, I guess there's probably a fair amount of people listening that are curious, well what is a whistleblower? And you hear it a lot in the news.


For my purposes, it's largely an employee, but like I mentioned, they can be community members as well, that make a disclosure regarding waste, fraud, abuse, threats to the public health or safety, and just general illegality. And with regard to plant workers, a lot of what I've been hearing are disclosures regarding public health.


So the health and safety of the worker, but also think, too, the safety of the food itself. If a worker is experiencing conditions that are unsafe and unhealthy, how is that worker going to be able to protect the food that you and your family eat? So I'd ask you to think about that. It's not just-- it's not just altruistic, you'd be helping yourself to help these workers, and at least do the very minimum and hear what they have to say.


And as I mentioned, they're in a unique position to identify these threats to the integrity of our food just because they know the system. So many of us looking from the outside can't really assess whether what we're seeing is necessarily illegal. It might be unfathomable or repugnant, but the actual illegality of it is something that whistleblowers bring to the conversation.


In order to represent these folks, we use just a variety of different litigation tools. State and federal, administrative, all available to us. There's not one whistleblower law, but when plant workers come to us saying that they're not getting PPE or social distancing isn't being enforced, we have to look at a whole galaxy and array of different laws that might pertain to that worker.


So it's no easy task. We are working, however, currently right now for federal policy change to make sure that any corporation that's receiving any stimulus money from the CORE Act also has public health whistleblowing-- a public health whistleblowing provision in that, so we are able hopefully to extend public health disclosures-- extend whistleblower provisions, rather, to public health disclosures.


So there's a number of whistleblower laws, and I've mentioned, we've been, Government Accountability Project for whom I work, they've done a number-- they put a number of these provisions into play over the last 15 years in a lot of different areas. So the issue areas that I work in primarily that brings me to this conversation is our work in worker rights, but we also do a fair amount of environmental whistleblowing.


A lot of animal welfare, which I made my first meetings with Farm Sanctuary through that work, our animal welfare disclosures, and we have some high-profile whistleblowers in that world. Of course, public health, which is-- we're generally calling food safety. So the actual safety of the food. And in general, transparency and accountability, not just with the-- when you think about the corporations doing the wrongdoing, but there needs to be-- we need to make sure that our watchdogs-- our government watchdogs, our regulatory entities are barking when there are problems with food-- with food's integrity and problems with the food system.


So a good deal of our work has been monitoring the people who are supposed to be monitoring our food safety and that we would hope would be doing-- have our best interests at heart, and unfortunately, there's a lot to be gained from gaming the system. So just kind of talking briefly, again, about maybe how I got into community lawyering. And for me, it's very much baked in the cake of what we do. Whistleblowers come to us, we don't come up with an idea like, "well let's do something with this community and let's bring ourselves into this community and adapt our methodology to what they're doing." We allow the whistleblowers in the communities to come to us.


We might-- we certainly might do work to let them become aware that we offer a service, but we are at our core a service provider. If someone has a truth to tell, whether they need media help or political support with that, we'll do that, but also if they run into legal trouble or professional trouble.


So let's say if a plant worker wanted to speak out, they could come to us first to help them get their disclosure out to the public through media, but if they make their disclosure in-house or to the media themselves without us and they get terminated or suffer some sort of reprisal-- that could be maybe put in a less favorable position or not get some sort of job benefit or not be able to go on your breaks in a timely fashion, something like that, we can also help them there through litigation support. So we do some version of that.


But I think that the main point here is that our model is reactive to the community's needs or the individual's need, and that's critical. And when I'm thinking about a lot of lawyering styles, often lawyers will come up with a problem and then superimpose their strategy on the existing community. And I'm always reminded of this quote from Saul Alinsky, and he says, "The worst form of social treason is to stir up a reaction that is more damaging to you than to your enemies."


So a lot of times in our quest to help people out, we fail on the most fundamental of feats, which is simply to ask that person if they even want our help. And so in this call, I'd like to just at least bring that to the forefront, that while it's great that we have these conversations, it's absolutely critical that we ask these communities that we intend to assist if they're interested even in our assistance.


And kind of ask yourself this question or create for yourself this challenge, to first see the world as it is, not as we would like it to be. And not to get sort of caught up in the spell and the romance of justice, right? And "I'm going to go in there and I'm going to make this better." It might serve you better and serve the common good to relax a little bit into your role, hand over the microphone for sure, elevate voices, but don't create the song list, right? So don't create the song for the person to sing, just hand over the microphone.


And if you're curious how that might look, cause it's, "Ah, I don't want to give up the mic" right? Well, what you need to do in working, again, across movements, whether you're fundamentally in the animal welfare movement, looking to move into other social justice worlds, it would behoove you, then, to align your values with, in this case, like a worker rights scenario. But it could easily be in any other sort of environmental justice movement.


Where do you see eye to eye, find commonality, and then work from there. It's just so critical in our efforts to make the world a better place that we don't accidentally make things even messier and possibly even undermine our common interests.


So again, in my role, my goal is to primarily use litigation as a tactic. And I am an attorney, I'm also-- I also have a background in public health. So when I look at litigation, it's not a heavy club. You don't want to big foot into someone else's problem or into their area without first, again, having a really good landscape analysis. But also understand that litigation isn't necessarily a means to an end, but it is, through the process, a way where communities can actually feel their power.


There's something about litigation that makes people feel like they really have a stake in the game, and litigation itself is kind of a, in many ways-- and I kind of use this freely, but it's sort of an elite strategy that very often runs counter to community organizing. So you want to use litigation, when you do use it or when you see it used, to play that role in creating a sense of empowerment and for sparking political mobilization.


I'm, again, so happy to be here with this great panel of speakers, and I'm really looking forward to hearing what others have to say about this and so many issues. The world is-- it's a new world for so many of us, and I'm so happy to be invited to these conversations.


Kameke: Awesome. Thank you so much, Amanda, I always appreciate hearing your perspective. Great. So we'll move on to our next speaker, Sindy Benavides. Sindy Benavides is a Honduran-American immigrant who has experienced the American dream, and now devotes her career to public service, ensuring that countless young people, women, and immigrants have the same opportunity.


She is currently Chief Executive officer for the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, the oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the country. She previously served as LULAC's Chief Operating Officer and National Director for Civic Engagement and Community Mobilization. Sindy received her bachelor of arts from Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia where she graduated valedictorian of her class and studied political science with a minor in Spanish. She has also attended American University for her master's degrees in social and international affairs. Welcome, Sindy. I will now turn it over to you.


Sindy: Thank you so much, Kameke, and thank you so much, Megan, for extending this invitation, and to the entire Farm Sanctuary team, thank you so much for having me, I'm really excited to be a part of this conversation. I wanted to first take a minute to introduce LULAC to the audience. LULAC is the League of United Latin American Citizens. We are the oldest and largest national Latino civil rights organization in the country. We were established in 1929 to protect and defend the Latino community at a time when simply coming together could be considered a conspiracy and our committee could be hanged, could be lynched without any sense of justice. Kameke, if you can go to the next slide.


In terms of our mission, we have a very broad mission, and I will tell you that we never have a dull day or moment. We are always on the front lines working with our community. And our mission is to advance economic conditions, educational attainment, political influence, housing, health and civil rights of the Latino community in the United States, and that also includes Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. Next.


As we experience COVID-19, I will tell you that these are certainly very uncertain times, but they have also been very dangerous times for the Latino community. We know from speaking with Surgeon General Adams that Latinos make up five out of six workers who have to leave their houses every single day to work and get paid, and so just to make sure you capture that, five out of six Latinos have to leave their houses every single day to work and get paid.


And what that means is that we are the frontline workers, we are the workers who are helping to keep America going, we are the workers that are not only at the grocery stores, but also at the restaurants that may be opened; in the hospitals, whether it is serving as a doctor, nurse, technician, or as a janitor; we are the meatpacking workers as well.


And so just keep in mind that as we look at the increase of COVID cases, part of the reason why Latinos are being disproportionately impacted is that we have to leave our houses at a very high number every single day, and we are being exposed every single day by COVID-19. Next. Next slide, Kameke.


Again, we continue to work through the crisis, and what we already know is because we are in industries that unfortunately have shut down, we as Latinos are experiencing high unemployment rate-- in fact, our unemployment rate is double that of our Caucasian counterparts. And why that is significant is because as we start thinking about one, paying mortgage, paying utilities, making sure our children are able to go to school, this has a long-term impact on our community. What folks are not thinking about is the level of anxiety, the level of stress, the mental health that will be needed in the future to address what we're experiencing today.


And the other side of this is the financial insecurity side. And the fact is that many communities of color already experience financial insecurity, had already been fighting simply to survive, and COVID-19 is exacerbating those conditions. And so just to give you an idea, LULAC has a relief fund for individuals and also for our counsels to be able to provide relief, and I remember that in May I received a message from one of the families, we had provided a gift card for $250, and that family reached out to say thank you and thank us for being able to provide food for a family of four for an entire month.


And so if you can just imagine, the hard decisions that family members are having to make today, whether it's putting food on the table for their children, for their elderly parents, for themselves, or paying the medical bills. We already know that many individuals are missing payments for their mortgages, and that many of them unfortunately will have to miss payments for their utility bills.


And so as we think through really how this holistically impacts so many in our community, so many in our community, too, who have never experienced unemployment, we have to be prepared to one, stand and lock arms with them, and also work with them to advocate for policies that will help them in the near future. Next.


As many of you know, LULAC has been at the forefront of making sure we're calling attention to what our meatpacking workers are experiencing. And to take a step back, LULAC, as a national civil rights organization, is really uniquely positioned because we're the only national Latino organization that has members, and our members are the community. They range in age from 12 years of age to our oldest member is 100-- turned 100 in April-- from every single background that you can imagine in over 41 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, DC.


And so as we started seeing what was happening in the meatpacking industry, we really were ahead of this, because it was LULAC members who are in this industry or family members of individuals who work in the meatpacking industry that were reaching out to us from Greeley, Colorado or from Iowa or from Washington state or from Nebraska or from Texas that were telling us that they were fearful of walking into the slaughterhouses because they felt that they were putting their own lives on the line.


And what they were seeing is that as they were going to work, they were seeing that the people that they worked with were not showing up, and that management was not telling them what was happening with their colleagues. And so they were really afraid because they were then hearing that "oh, your colleague is in the hospital, they have COVID-19," and they're thinking, "well I was just with them a few days ago and now I could have COVID-19."


And so LULAC really early on, as early as March, we actually reached out to OSHA and wrote letters of complaints at the state level on behalf of the workers so that they could investigate these cases. To this day, we have not received our response from the national level, but certainly we have seen that at the state level, OSHA has started investigating.


I can also tell you that we started really a public pressure campaign against many of these companies. JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, Smithfield, and National Beef because we were hearing directly from the workers. And what happened next is actually we ended up meeting with the presidents of JBS and Tyson Foods, and we're getting ready to meet with the presidents of the other corporations to continue to advocate for the workers.


And I want to be very clear, and I think Amanda hit on this, many of these workers are really fearful of retaliation. And when they reached out to LULAC, they were even scared to give us their name, to give us their location, because they were fearful that they were going to get fired from the only job that they had to sustain themselves and their families.


And so I just want you to imagine workers having to make the decision of keeping quiet and marching into slaughterhouses knowing that they may be putting their lives on the line, because so many of the other workers had already contracted COVID-19, because they didn't have the protective gear, because social distancing wasn't being enforced. And so if you look at this line, certainly you don't see six feet of social distancing, not in the restroom and not in the locker rooms.


And I do also want to make a note that things that may seem so very logical to you and I may not be as logical to other individuals. And so for example, we have to be able to take a step back and explain what social distancing is, why the six feet apart, why it is that we have to wear face masks. And another example is that us we started working with the Latino community on COVID-19 specifically, even taking a step back to explain what food banks are was something that we had to do because so many in our community did not know about these safety net programs, and on top of that, they were fearful that they could be considered a public charge under the current administration and potentially be deported.


And so we just have to be very mindful in terms of, one, working and connecting with our workers in this industry, and I will tell you that Latinos are disproportionately, actually, represented in this particular industry, and the food manufacturing workers, we make up more than 43%, and when you look at animal slaughterhouses, we're close to 50% if not more.


And so as we connect with these different corporations, please know that we will continue to pressure, we will continue to advocate for workers, and we're asking, one, that the speed of the line be slowed down so that workers can actually be able to practice social distancing, that they be provided PPE equipment, protective gear, and that also that they be tested, one, not only on a monthly basis, which I know is where a lot of the companies are now, but even on a weekly basis, because there's still outbreaks that are happening in the meatpacking industry.


And one other thing that I wanted to point out is because there has been attention being brought to the meatpacking workers, unfortunately what has happened, too, is that they are facing racism and discrimination, especially where the plants are located. A lot of these workers, believe it or not, when they are off the clock and doing normal things like grocery shopping, they're being denied services and being told to leave the grocery store because there's a fear that they have COVID-19, because they work at a meatpacking industry or plant, that they may actually bring that into the store.


And so you can just imagine the level of racism and discrimination that is happening against these workers across the country is something that we also want to flag and highlight, because these are individuals that are really putting their lives on the line to make sure that so many in our country are able to have that piece of steak or chicken on their plate, and so we want to make sure that we're being really conscientious of that.


One thing that we also found out is that many of the workers are Spanish-dominant, and we want to make sure that they get the information not only in English, but that they also get it in the language that they're most fluent and that they understand. And so Kameke, if you can go to the next slide.


And that's why it's so important that we keep, one, the issue of access to language in mind, and as I mentioned before, as we continue to look at where we could be helpful, understand that so many, again, because we're experiencing not only high unemployment, but also a lot of cut in hours, that we're relying on safety net programs.


But I did want to place a caveat here, that so many in our community are just finding out about these safety net programs that exist because they've never had to rely on them, because they don't know what a food bank is, and because they're really fearful of this public charge rule that is under this administration, though it was rolled back for COVID testing. Next.


And then I did want to point out, because again, the narrative that we are now seeing when it comes to COVID cases is that they're putting blame on the Latino community, blame is being casted on the workers, and I wanted to make sure that folks understood, again, that in the Latino community, only 12% of us are able to telework. The majority of us actually have to leave our houses to work and get paid, and that's not only in the meatpacking industry, but that's also in the farmworking community.


And so if you can just imagine, we don't have the luxury. And I'm one of those individuals that's super privileged that can work from home and I don't have to leave my house, but many in our community, many people I know, many of my relatives, my own brothers have to leave their houses every single day to work and get paid.


And so I want to make sure that this is at the top of the mind, because what we are already seeing is a narrative of placing blame on the workers, a narrative that's very divisive and that, again, is being used politically to pivot one community against the next. And I want us to be really smart and understand that it's a tactic. And that unfortunately for many in the Latino community, we have to leave our houses every single day to work and get paid, and really, only 12% of us are able to telework. Next.


And as I mentioned, part of the action that we're taking is making sure that our community knows that there are resources available in Spanish, and this is especially important for meatpacking workers and workers who are in this industry who are Spanish-dominant. And so one of the things that you could do is get the word out. We are on Twitter, we are on Facebook, we're on social media, and just reposting to your networks and saying, Ayuda en Espanol, which is help in Spanish.


This is a toolkit that has everything from how to find your food bank to how to apply for unemployment benefits if you qualify, to where can you get help if you're experiencing domestic violence is super important, and we were really excited to see Eva Longoria and so many other leaders join us in this effort, because we want to make sure that our community has that basic information of things that they're able to do, and that-- next.


And then I did want to end with this, and we are actually-- we were just contacted over the weekend and we are still investigating and trying to put the facts together. But I want you to understand that people's lives are on the line. We know that these are dangerous times, these are uncertain times, these are times where so many in our community don't feel safe and are experiencing stress and anxiety because we have so many unknown factors.


But over the weekend, we got contacted by workers who are in Omega, Georgia. And so for any of the viewers who may be in Georgia, we were contacted that Patrick Farms in Georgia, as workers were getting-- testing COVID-positive, that they were actually being put on a bus and being shipped back to Mexico.


And so as we look into this case, if any of you are in Georgia and would like to join us in putting pressure on the governor and putting pressure on Patrick Farms, please know that we need your help, and as Amanda has stated, we are asking for your help, many of these workers feel very vulnerable, many of them are fearful, and what we know already is that there is a lot of details here that we need to investigate and look into, as we do think that there may be potentially laws and policies that are being broken.


And what we also know is that these workers are being charged $500 for COVID testing. And if you can just imagine, a worker in this industry maybe makes $600 a week if they're lucky, and the fact that they're being charged $500 just to get that COVID test, that means that they're at a disadvantage. And what is more is that they're being sent back to another country testing COVID-positive, being put on a bus that potentially exposes other individuals.


And so as we look into this case, please reach out to us. We need friends, we need allies, our community needs you in this fight. This is something that's not going to be short-term, it really is a long-term fight, and I know that Megan and Amanda, who have been doing this work for so long, can attest to the fact that it takes years to create these changes, and I think today, really, this is the moment where we unite and we come together to really put pressure not only on the corporations, but also on our government to make sure that these changes occur. Thank you.


Kameke: Thank you so much, Sindy, I'm really glad that you are here joining us and able to share that perspective, it's so, so important. OK, next up is Crystal Coast Waterkeeper, Larry Baldwin. So Larry Baldwin became the Crystal Coast Waterkeeper in 2016. He had previously been the Lower Neuse Riverkeeper located in New Bern, North Carolina where the issue of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation-- CAFO-- pollution was very evident in the Neuse River Watershed as well as the other bodies of water in Eastern North Carolina.


During that time, he began working with local environmental justice organizations and the communities they serve to stop the negative impacts that the swine and poultry industry was and continues to have on the water, air, and families who live in the vicinity of those operations. As the Crystal Coast Waterkeeper, Larry continues his work with the environmental justice communities and the North Carolina Riverkeepers to oppose the oppressive CAFO industry. His work focuses on protecting the beautiful coast and watersheds of North Carolina and educating the public about the impacts that CAFOs are having on the entire state. Glad to have you with us, Larry. I'll now pass it over to you.


Larry: Thank you, Kameke and Megan and all of Farm Sanctuary for putting this together, and there's just some amazing people that you're seeing on this screen. So the title kind of this is Exploring the Health of our Modern Food System. I can put that in two words-- it's broken, and it's broken on many different levels the way I see it.


To back up a little bit, I am a waterkeeper. I'm a licensed waterkeeper through Waterkeeper Alliance. And because of that, my focus is on water quality. But when I became the Lower Neuse Riverkeeper in 2002, it didn't take long in looking at the pollution coming from these CAFOs-- Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, and that includes swine, hogs, poultry, which is chickens and turkeys, and also the dairy cattle industry. So all of these in a CAFO, just real briefly, it's not the way we remember or we may have thought from our grandparents as to how our meat was raised.


Most people have seen-- and I use this example all the time because most people can relate to it, I've seen the movie Charlotte's Web. And you see the animals, they're jumping and playing in the barnyard and it's sunny and everything's great. That's not the way things are done anymore. We have these huge, what we refer to as industrial factories. In fact, I find it very difficult to refer to them as a farm, because it's not a traditional way of farming.


So we have switched over to this method, and it's been between 25 and 30 years that this has really started happening, particularly in Eastern North Carolina. And it is probably one of the most unsustainable ways of raising our food, particularly our meat products, that I can really think of.


And it's-- the unfortunate part of it is it's hidden. Most people in this country and even around the world do not realize how the meat that we consume is actually produced. And a lot of the meat that's being produced here is going overseas, so it's not just what's happening here in our country, it's the impact it's having in other countries as well.


But this specific form of raising our meat-- and we're not even going to get into the crop side of our food system in this conversation-- once I really started looking at the pollution coming from these specific CAFOs, it was almost like something hit me in the face, it's like, well where are they located? And the unfortunate fact is that the majority of these CAFOs, whether it's hogs or chickens or turkeys or dairy, are primarily located in communities of color, low-income communities.


And you can say, well, OK, it just so happened that way. I don't believe that. I don't believe that for a minute. In doing some of my own research and in looking at research done by others, particularly Dr. Steve Wing, Dr. Steve Wing was an epidemiologist at UNC Chapel Hill and who did studies and spent a lot of time in the impacted communities.


You have an industry who I believe did and purposely continues to make fortunes off of the backs of people who they feel they can control. And some of what you've heard from Sindy and some of what you've heard from Amanda, they are controlling it. And if there's one thing to come out of this discussion today is it's time for us to take it back.


So what does that mean? Well, again, our food system is broken. And when we look at the way we raise our meat, I look at it-- and, I mean, I love onions, so it's kind of a strange correlation. Is if you peel one layer of the onion back, there's another layer underneath of that that is going to be a bit smelly. There is no one thing about our current food system, particularly in the meat manufacturing, that I see as being a real positive other than the fact that we're producing meat cheaply.


And that's the problem. Because we're producing meat that cheaply, it really has a stranglehold on the market as a whole. So most people cannot look to alternatives as to what they're going to eat or where their meat comes from. What really concerned me in this current modern food system is that the system is grinding even further and further toward being totally unsustainable when we look at what happens in these meatpacking facilities. And I've had the opportunity to go through a poultry-- and I'm going to call it a slaughterhouse.


What we are putting-- well first of all, what we're putting the animals through is despicable. But what really jumped out at me from that tour was to see the conditions and hear about the way the workers had to perform their job day after day after day. So I'm kind of looking at both sides of this whole meat production issue, the raising of the animals and then once they go to slaughter.


Yes, it's horrible for the animals. It's horrible for the environment. I can tell you horror stories of what we are doing to our environment, to our streams, creeks, rivers, to our groundwater, to our surface water. It is absolutely despicable what we're doing to our communities and who those communities really are. To stand in this chicken slaughterhouse and see people standing shoulder to shoulder for seven-and-a-half hours a day.


How-- I guess first, how do we sleep at night? How do we sleep at night knowing that the meat that we're consuming is being produced in such a manner from the very beginning, as to how the animals are raised, all the way through to how it ends up in that grocery store? And then you start to look at all the other aspects that fall into this overall system, what I refer to as the CAFO system. Its environmental health, it's the community's health, it's the animals health. It's the health of the meat products themselves. Most people don't realize how many antibiotics are fed to these animals as they're growing to keep them alive long enough for them to be put on our plate. It would-- I think it would really, to be honest with you, turn a lot of people's stomachs to know exactly what happens.


When we talk about this modern food system, ain't nothing modern about it. In some ways, I feel we've gone backwards. We have gone absolutely in the wrong direction. In North Carolina where I live and work, before this CAFO system came about, particularly with the hogs, there were 24,000 farmers across the state who were raising animals. And now, and particularly with the swine, there are 2,400.


So the industry, this industry loves to say we're feeding the world. Well, we're barely feeding the people down the street, as a friend of mine says. And they talk about the economic impact. Well you take-- just take that number of 24,000 farmers, and now we've reduced that to 2,400 producers. I'm sorry, I cannot call you a farmer if you're raising animals the way they do today.


This entire process has gotten flipped on its head. And the ones who are really paying that price are the ones who really do not have the opportunity to stand up and say no. It's a sad fact. So I bring this back to what is my responsibility? Well, my responsibility to some degree could be said, well, it's your job, you're a waterkeeper. Well, it's not my job, it's my lifestyle, to be honest with you.


Each one of us have a responsibility to stand for our neighbor. And every one of us can do that just by doing the things that you've heard about already. If you know of something happening, say something. This system is so intertwined, particularly in the government of North Carolina, it is going to take a monumental effort to change things, but we are not about to give up. And in fact, in a lot of ways, when you see a roadblock come up, it's just another incentive to jump that roadblock and let's keep moving forward.


But it's going to take all of us, and like I said, you see-- and you're going to hear from some amazing people yet today, this is the kind of message that has to get out, because as I move about Eastern North Carolina, it's amazing the number of people still to this day-- and I've been doing this for 18 years-- who still don't understand what it takes to put that pork chop or that chicken breast on their plate, and who is being impacted in the process, and what is being impacted in the process.


Everybody wants clean water. Well what are we going to do to get our clean water back? Everybody wants our communities and our children, our grandchildren to be healthy. I have a grandson who's going to turn two years in several days. What am I leaving him? What are we each leaving our-- what is our heritage? And to be honest with you, that heritage, to me, scares me a little bit.


So to me, it's a great honor to be able to be associated with folks that are on this event today, and so many others. We have waterkeepers around the world fighting every day for water, for clean water, which is a basic need of every human being. We have other folks who are fighting every day for workers' rights. Most of us wouldn't-- we just have no idea what we're putting people-- the situation we're putting them into in order for them just to survive.


So let's stop being so damn selfish would be my comment to that, and think about who's standing next to us or who's living down the street or who's living in the next county. It's time for us to take our food system back, and what I am seeing, and particularly with this current COVID deal going on, these industries should be ashamed of themselves. There was just a report that came out showing that we're being told in this country by these integrators, these larger companies, that there's a meat shortage. In the meantime, they've increased the percentage of exports to other countries like China.


So it is-- what are we doing, OK? We're playing a game with people's lives, and it's a game that we can't afford to play. There's too much at risk. So I just want to say thank you again to Farm Sanctuary, to the other panelists on this. All I can say is keep up the fight. There are so many different layers, so many different aspects to what we're going through in our current modern food system. Find your place. Find your place to make a difference.


Because I believe it, from the bottom of my heart, if we don't start making some changes real soon, I'm not sure where we're headed, and I hate to sound like the doomsday guy, but it scares me. It scares me for my grandson, it scares me for everybody else's son, daughter, grandchildren, whatever.


So I guess the encouraging word I'll leave you with in my last few seconds is, it's nice to be in the fight with so many awesome people. Thank you.


Kameke: Agreed. Thank you so much, Larry. Our final speaker is Gerardo Reyes Chavez. Gerardo is a senior staff member at the award-winning human rights organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Mr. Reyes is a farm worker and has worked in the field since age 11, first as a peasant farmer in Mexico, and then in the fields of Florida, picking oranges, tomatoes, blueberries, and watermelon.


Mr. Reyes has worked with consumer allies to organize national actions in the Campaign for Fair Food. As part of the implementation of the Fair Food Program, Mr. Reyes conducts workers' rights education with thousands of farm workers on participating tomato farms. Mr. Reyes speaks regularly about the Fair Food Program at events across the country. Welcome, Gerardo, and I'll turn it over to you.


Gerardo: Thank you. And this won't be the exception. I'll tell you a little bit about that. Thank you so much for inviting us to be part of this important conversation. I'll start by sharing a little bit about Immokalee. Immokalee is a community that was formed as a labor reserve due to the need for workers in industries-- or the agricultural industry that is very strongly based in this area with production all over the state, but also all over the East Coast. They have grown over time to be one of the most powerful industries in the country.


Just to give you a sense, Florida produces about 90% of the fresh tomatoes, tomatoes that are hand-picked for the US consumption. 90% of the tomatoes produced in US soil come from Florida also, that's another important fact. So during the winter months, which are considered from November to May, is when we are producing here in Florida, then we follow that system with these companies to other the states. Right now there's workers in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and many other workers are traveling to other states to do other crops.


So that's a community that formed by workers coming mainly from Mexico, Guatamala, and Haiti that have been working since 1993-- that's when the coalition started-- to organize first from a borrowed room, the Catholic Church here in town, and then eventually with an office in '95 on First Street.


Since its inception, the coalition has been pushing to achieve two main things-- to increase wages and to also eliminate the imbalance between workers and their employers that is reflected on wage theft-- also wages that have been stagnant for more than three decades. $0.40 to $0.45 a $1 since 1978 until we implemented something that we call the Fair Food Program. I'll share a little bit about what that means.


Along with that situation, so sexual harassment that impact about 90% of farm worker women according to this study that came from the Southern Poverty Law Center several years ago, and that information was obtained in the context in which people are afraid to speak, especially women, because of the violent nature of agriculture. Seven to 10 cases were reported to legal aid services, the workers been beaten, like punched, kicked in the fields prior to the existence of the organization. And they estimated that for every case, there were seven to 10 cases that were not reported out of fear. Crew leaders would carry guns in the fields and shoot them up in the air to show when it was time to begin or to end the day.


Along with this, it's not-- or because of that, when you know that that is part of the context in which the food is being produced, you will also know that it's not surprising that there are cases of extreme abuse, like modern day slavery, where workers have been forced to work at some point on the threat of death against them and sometimes against their families when the recruiters work directly with the crew leaders.


We have worked since the beginning of the fight against modern day slavery for many, many years. In many cases there has been nine cases, eight prosecutions-- nine investigations, eight prosecutions, 1,200 workers that have been freed from these conditions, and 15 bosses that have gone to prison.


To give you a sense of what I mean when I talk about modern day slavery, we are talking about workers that have lived inside a cargo truck, for example, that was one of the cases that happened here in Immokalee. And in this case in 2007, wasn't over 2008 that was prosecuted, workers were forced to live inside a cargo truck. They didn't have access to a bathroom. There was a padlock used to keep them inside, and there were chains literally used to send the message to the rest of the crew.


One of the workers was able to push his way through the roof of this old U-Haul type of truck, brought a ladder, and helped the other workers escape. Two of them came to our office, and that's how the investigation happened. Some other workers went to talk to the police because through the radio that we have, Radio Conciencia, we were always broadcasting about the rights that people have and workers knew what to do, where to go, and who to talk to. The police officers were trained to be able to investigate situations like that in the task force that was created for that purpose.


So when you think about all of this, it was necessary for the community to fight all of this, and that's precisely how all of these investigations were possible, all of these cases have been-- I wouldn't say resolved, because workers have gone through the ordeal that is basically changing their lives forever. There's no coming back after you are producing food and in a situation that puts you in violence like that, and the goal for us is to stop it.


So with that in mind, there were general strikes in the night that I'm not going to get into much detail-- I know time is limited-- but there were three general strikes. There was with more than 3,000 workers. There was a hunger strike by six workers for 30 days, all of these aiming to bring the agricultural industry to the table. They were not ready back then, the first decade of the CIW was on fighting to bring the growers to talk about how to eliminate all of this and talk about the need for an increase in wages. They continued to say, "We can't because we're being pressured by the market."


So we studied the market, and we realized that in part, that is true, because the market prior to 2001 when we started what we call the Fair Food-- the Campaign for Fair Food with Taco Bell, we studied the market and we realized that for the past four decades, corporations that existed knew the influence or power they have to exercise a pressure for lower and lower cost of the produce they needed in the restaurant, supermarkets, food providers. All of those were using that same way of operating, which was to push the suppliers for the lowest possible price.


So we created the theory of change which states that the market is used to perpetuate the poverty of workers, because somebody has to pay for it. And the growers were not going to be pay it on their own. They needed to cut costs of production, and it was through the stagnant of wages that were like that for more than 30 years, $0.40 to $0.45.


So we needed the market to also come and do something different. And we ask the buyers to pay one penny more per pound that goes directly to the workers by conditioning the purchasing of the tomatoes to the implementation of a code of conduct that would be created by us with zero-tolerance policies for modern day slavery-- that's how it started. It has evolved to be zero tolerance for child labor and sexual assault. And right now, it's what we are implementing.


When we started, we started inviting Taco Bell. It took a four-year boycott. In 2005, they finally came in because there were more than 300 universities organizing in solidarity with us because of the national tours we did, four consecutive times. And then from there, the National Council of Churches also got involved, and there were a lot of congregations supporting us, feeding us while we were on tour, and that created an alliance between workers and consumers of conscience across the country that led to the basically reaching of agreements with 13 other corporations.


Among them, just to give you a few examples, McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, Whole Foods, Compass Group, which is the largest, and a few other food providers and hospitals and universities, and even Walmart.


So as you can see, we have through our work a connection, direct connection with people everywhere in every community. And without us, none of those tomatoes would make it to the homes of many of the people that are right now are recovering or are in hospitals battling against COVID-19.


We have been told that our job is essential. We have not been given anything that shows that it is done by people that are also considered essential. No personal protective equipment was given when all of this started. We had to rely on the relationships that we have created since 2011 when we landed this collaboration with the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, which represents 90% of the tomato industry.


Through the Fair Food Program, all of these demands started to function, and through that partnership, we started to talk with the growers about what is it that can be done in lieu of this pandemic that is coming and is going to hit us? Because remember, workers live overcrowded. We as workers go to work in overcrowded transportation. No personal protective equipment was made available by the government. It was hard to find it.


So we started to coordinate with these growers to make the delivery of those masks and hand sanitizer while they were also doing their part in finding whatever they needed to be able to sanitize the buses twice a day, bathrooms twice a day, and be able to also bring those supplies to the housing whenever they were providing that for the workers.


They were also making plans to bring in food to the workers instead of workers making multiple trips to the store, so that would help to mitigate the probabilities of being exposed to COVID-19. Along with this, they were paying for the food of the workers, the groceries and everything. They asked us to provide them with a list, and they went also as far as to provide their own hand washing industrial-sized handwashing unit, I'll call them, in town. There's seven that are placed in different spots where the workers are picked up to go to work with different companies or in different industries, even-- landscaping, construction, those are jobs that are also important for people here.


And that was done in coordination with the Department of Health Emergency Management, but at the end, that's not enough. Because remember, we as workers are vulnerable already. And it doesn't matter how much a grower can do-- and they are doing as much as they can, that our best practices that are being promoted among every single grower that is participating with the Fair Food Program. And they are doing a lot, but that's not enough. We need the government to step in, and this is where they didn't.


All the month of April, we were in an open campaign asking the governor to come in and take the leadership, to make the testing available for our community so that we would know how many workers had contracted the virus, at that point to be able to have a plan in place to be able to control it.


And we were talking about all of these vulnerabilities, they ignored it. We started actually since mid-March trying to talk with local officials and they didn't listen. A month later, when we started the campaign with a petition for the governor and letters to the commissioners here in our county, they had, in an entire month, conducted only about 163 tests in the entire month.


Well, we were pushing at the beginning of May-- 3rd, 4th, and 5th of May, they dedicated 2,000 kits, but they did it in hours that didn't really make much sense for workers that were working in the fields. They were closing at 6:15, 6:30 when they say they would be until 7:00. And at that time, workers are still coming back from the field.


Workers are especially hesitant to just go and take a test because they have not been offered any kind of economical support. Especially when people are undocumented, you're not going to be receiving any of that. So you depend on the daily wages. Recommendations of social distancing make no sense for a farmworker, and especially when you are not provided any kind of personal protective equipment.


So the women's group in our community started to sew a face mask that are reusable and thousands have been distributed. People started to send us donations and we started to distribute all of that with information about how to prevent COVID-19. We use the radio, we place drawings all over town so that people would receive in the form of popular education the information that they needed.


So far, there were only three days of testing that were significant, and then it slowed down. And then at the end of May, another set of testing was made available, but so far, the response from the government has been late, has been insufficient, and it has now been really slow.


So we are asking people to join us in this fight to pressure the governor, to pressure the local county officials to do their part. We need to be able to first know how many workers are infected. As of today with limited testing, we have been able to identify 1,453-- I mean, through the testing that is being applied-- with organizations that have jumped into response to this crisis in Immokalee, organizations like partners in health that are right now here.


Global Response Management is also working with us, and Doctors Without Borders, which, by the way, are not here anymore, they worked here for a couple of months, but they responded before the Department of Health responded. An international organization came to the rescue in absence of the local authorities doing their job.


So I just want to invite people to join with us and go to immokaleecovid19-- no hyphen-- immokaleecovid19.org and just join the fight. We need to have as many people as possible so that as workers, we don't live in that contradiction in which you are told that your job is essential but you are not provided the things that you need to be able to do proper testing, contact tracing, isolation and quarantine in the spaces that are here, and the treatment that is so desperately needed. We don't even have a hospital here in Immokalee, we don't have transportation. We are in a really, really vulnerable spot. So whatever you can do to support this fight, please join us, and thank you very much.


Kameke: Thank you so much, Gerardo, it's-- I'm just really appreciating having all of you all on this-- taking part in this event and the various diverse perspectives that you all are bringing that are all so important. And I think what's being highlighted here is just the pervasiveness of these patterns of harm within our food system. We see it, it's impacting communities, impacting the environment, impacting animal agriculture, and then also produce, the produce industry as well, and produce workers, field workers, farm workers.


And so just understanding as we're looking to move toward a more just and compassionate food system and a more just and compassionate world overall, just really understanding that these patterns are pervasive and interrelated, and as we think about how we create change, really incorporating that understanding into how we then move forward and how we then collaborate and work in solidarity with one another.


So I'm just really appreciating all of our incredible speakers today. And we are actually now moving on to the Q&A roundtable discussion portion of the event to bring all of our speakers into conversation with each other and with Megan and I. So I would like to first start off by opening it up with a question to bring us into conversation around these points of alignment, resonance, and particular interest in what you all have shared.


So thinking about each of your individual experiences, perspectives, and expertise, I'm curious what stood out to you from what other speakers talked about and why that particular thing or topic stood out to you.


Gerardo: Well for me, I think that it is the fact that we are finding points of connection, you know? Once we know what's going on with the waterways, once we know what's going on in regards to the numbers that are needed to be able to respond or bring people that are not even aware, what Sindy was sharing about only one person in six gets to stay at home, 12% of Latinos, and the rest have to go to work.


Like, people don't think about those practical pieces of understanding, and they tend to blame us. That's something that is also going on here. The governor is blaming the community of farm workers and other workers implying that we are not doing our part on taking care of ourselves, which is not true. We have not been given the testing that's necessary.


So to me, that was important, that connection with the resources that are being contaminated and the way in which industries do it with total disregard, I think that we are all saying similar things in that respect, and I hope that that can help us to connect even further in working together.


Sindy: And I'll jump in here, Kameke, and I'll say that certainly have been thinking about what Larry mentioned in terms of how the meat is produced and the fact that we're not asking the questions if it's being shipped overseas, but yet we're hearing this narrative that we are lacking meat here in the US and we have soaring prices that are happening.


And I think-- as I think of that, really what I think is-- and I think it's something that Farm Sanctuary has been doing, is how do we continue to educate ourselves as consumers? How do we make sure that we're asking the right questions to the right individuals? And really making sure that we understand this cycle of production of food in the US and what it means, right? Like not only to the local farmer grower, but also to the workers, to the animal, the consumer, to the grocery store, and it's almost an entire chain effect that we're seeing-- this really broad chain.


And when one part is impacted, the effect that it has on all the other parts and what we saw with the workers-- and I think there was an estimate that in May, that about 10,000 workers in meatpacking industries had tested positive for COVID-19, and we actually think that's a massive undercount, because we know that frequent testing is not happening enough or at all. And so certainly thinking about that.


And I think to Gerardo's point, super interested to figure out-- and I'm going to ask, Kameke, for your contact information, because I've just been hearing some of the stories that you were saying. I can tell you, I was taking about two pages of notes to reach out to you and figure out how we lock arms in justice, and also how we as a civil rights organization can be helpful whether it's raising awareness about water or raising awareness about the experiences that our farm workers are currently undergoing that we're not thinking of.


Larry: I guess the-- well first of all, the interconnection between the people on this screen, first of all, should give us an indication of what it is that's possible to be done. And it's that interconnection that we've really lost, but to Gerardo's point about-- Sindy mentioned the percentage of Latinos who-- they don't have a choice whether they get up and go to work. We make it-- they've made it sound so easy. Well, just stay home. Well, it's not that easy.


One of the other things that I've seen-- and it kind of goes back to part of the conversation I had with-- they're saying that there's a meat shortage here, and we're finding out that more is being shipped overseas, one of the things that a number of us in North Carolina decided to do as soon as we started hearing of this, the meatpacking plants shutting down or being slowed down, well, what are they going to do with all these animals?


So we were geared up for some serious what we term mass mortality issues. And one of the things that is very striking to me-- and I was just in a small airplane this morning before coming to do this, we're not seeing that mass mortality. If you have a hog farm that has 1,500 animals on it or 4,000 animals and they cannot be used, or you have a chicken barn that holds 22,000 birds and they can't be used, there's something going on here because we're not seeing and we're not hearing much about what's happening with those animals, which just kind of reinforces the fact that we're being fed a narrative that just isn't true.


So there's just been so much stuff come up in this conversation that we could go on for hours, I'm sure, but I guess kind of the word that comes to my mind is interconnectivity. If we can't interconnect, then we're all fighting our own little fight, but we've got to bring it all together.


Amanda: Definitely. I want to echo what Larry said about the interconnectedness, and I think that just this very simple observation, all of us are representing in some way an externality that adds to the profitability of a lot in the meat industry, but really across the entire food system. We are in the quest not to feed the world, but to feed the world cheaply. And so we do so at the peril of many times the workers, the environment, and in terms of the meat industry, certainly the animals.


The other thing that I find very interesting is, I suspect a lot of people that are listening to our conversation today might say-- might be coming to a new realization that a plant worker might be fired for even inquiring who's been-- how many people have been sick at his or her plant, or that low-income communities, largely communities of color, are the disproportionate "beneficiaries" of industrial animal pollution, or that a farm worker might have been stored away without a bathroom and it might be very, very shocking.


But I do want to point out, when I first got into this business, the first thing I was told is, check out Immokalee, right? Like if you want to see how it's done, you want to see how organizing looks, check those folks out. And listening to you, Sindy as well, and I am remembering-- and it just occurred to me, on this-- in this exercise, in this conversation, it is the agricultural workers who have stood up and organized and made this happen. Ag workers are sentinels, they really are. They're waking us up. Whether it's your new realization, it is their lived reality, and we're waking up. And that's what I think we're seeing here, and that's what this conversation is about.


And I heard this old saying or something, it says, "If you ask the fish about the contents of her fish tank, the last thing she'll tell you about is the water" and I think Sindy and Gerardo and their contemporaries are telling us the water is polluted. That there is a problem here. And the question isn't really is it happening, it's why won't you believe them? Why won't you believe them when they tell you this is happening to people?


Why won't you believe it when you find out how animals are stored in CAFOs? Why won't you believe it when I tell you that systemic racism has propped these industries, has made these industries possible? Just like a cancer, it feeds on that decay, feeds on that rot, right? That worst part in us, those embedded kind of prejudices, that's where these industries profit.


And ag workers are telling you about the water in the tank, you know? This is the air that we breathe, this is our lived experience. And my hope is that anyone listening for the first time is fiddling their thumbs saying, "Well what do I do about it?" Don't get comfortable. Don't ever get comfortable. You can make personal choices in your own dietary kind of-- your own sort of what you eat, your own-- how you approach food.


But you can also galvanize to create political will. And today, it's as easy as going to these websites and making a donation. It's that easy. But don't get comfortable. Don't leave this conversation and think that you're going to be OK with the status quo.


Megan: Thank you. Thank you all for those reflections. I have to share, I mean, there is just so much strength in some of the words that were shared that may have come out simply. I mean, Larry, I'm thinking back to modern food system. Yeah, it's broken, right? How do we sleep at night? How do we sleep at night when Sindy's telling us that lives are on the line, you know? Amanda, coming back to you right early in the beginning, talking about what is unfathomable-- I think you used the word repugnant, but not illegal, right? What's lurking in the corners?


And Gerardo, as you said, likening the activity, likening the level of violence that is happening, the worker conditions, to a structure of modern day slavery. I think about Farm Sanctuary, and of course, we operate sanctuaries for animals-- for animals to live out their lives, but I think conceptually as we think about sanctuary, this is about compassionate community. This is about, as Kameke was saying, movement, progress toward a more just and compassionate food system.


As we think about that progress that we're all hoping to make, I wonder if I could ask each of you to just signal for us a few changes, a few indicators, of forward progress maybe in the short or the long-term. I know Sindy, you were saying line speeds, right? There's some work that we're actively now working on together as we think about potential progress. You also talked about the availability of information, about safety net programs, right? In languages that people are dominant in and how important that would be. Amanda, you talked about the public health whistleblowing. I mean, these are all signs of progress.


But what are some other things that we should be looking for, that we should be working toward, that we should be receiving as indicators of progress in that forward direction?


Gerardo: I can go. Well, as I was sharing, we created something that we called the Fair Food Program, which is this collaboration between workers as partners of an industry that is now working with us, the tomato industry. And what that translates into, because of the power of the market backing up the rights that the workers we as a community created, those rights have to be respected, because there are market consequences accompanying the compliance-- or non-compliance of those rights, which has led our community to eliminate two of the most insidious and horrible crimes that take place in our culture, which is sexual assault and modern day slavery.


There hasn't been cases since we implemented the Fair Food Program inside the agricultural industry. We have been able to eliminate over time situations of sexual assault and decreased in a huge way incidents of sexual harassment and the nature of how that happens also. Because there are clear market consequences, and people cannot get away with things like that as they used to, because at the end of the day, those are crimes of power, and you do that because you think that you are not going to suffer any kind of consequence.


But when people see that crew leaders or supervisors are fired because of that or for being violent against workers, those kinds of behaviors are not going to continue to happen because the growers are proactively working with us and working with their crews to ensure that they know that they can speak up.


There is actually a very important right, a right to complain without fear of retaliation. Any grower that retaliates against a worker speaking up about problems happening in their operation, it's failing to comply with the program. And really, any provision that's violated, it's going to translate into a status of non-compliance for that grower, so it's in their best interest to comply.


And that has brought a transformation in the way in which the entire tomato industry looks at this partnership. There have been growers that said before we even get to the point where we have enough of the market saying, "It is time for you to sit with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and agree to the Fair Food Program," they would say things like, "On our dead body we will sit with them, on our dead body we will comply with any of those things. We will never compete with each other or other industries on the basis of human rights." And that's precisely what they are doing now.


And some of them have said, "We're honest with ourselves," and that's coming from them. "If we're honest with ourselves, because of the implementation of the Fair Food Program, we are better operations," because they have seen the benefits of it. They have seen that when workers are treated in a fair way and they are receiving in the form of a bonus, which is something that I-- with all of this condemning going on, I lost track of how many millions at this point, but at the beginning, we had-- at the beginning of the year, I think we had $30 million that had been distributed because of the penny per pound coming from every corporation.


Right now, I haven't even checked, but that's distributed in the form of a bonus for workers in the fields. The $0.40 to $0.45 that were stagnant for 30 years are now, in the span of eight years-- and the growers are not going to say that, but they have invested themselves into putting clocks in the fields that didn't exist, shade in the fields that is a requirement along with the right of workers to have breaks during the day and the right to stop if they feel threatened for the health or the safety in regards to extreme heat, pesticide exposure.


All of those provisions are part of it, but one that is very important is the right of workers to meet with the company representatives to talk about how to improve the operation and eliminate the risks that workers identify. Notes have to be taken around that and a report needs to be made to a third party organization that we help to put together along with the growers that's called the Fair Food Standards Council. They are charged with the task of overseeing the implementation of all of these provisions.


So that's the way to go, but there's limiting factors. We only have 14 corporations, which represents about 20% of the market. The percentage is not absolute, because to know the exact number, we need to know how much other buyers are buying from this industry. But right now, we're focusing on a boycott of Wendy's to bring them to the table, and to bring their suppliers, and to participate with these growers, which they abandoned and went to Mexico because they were implementing this program.


It is time for them to come back. It is time for them to buy responsibly, and as more buyers are joining, we are getting closer to be able to bring the entire retail food industry in this nation to do the same, which will give us the opportunity to spread this all over the US. We are also collaborating with other groups like the dairy industry represented by Migrant Justice; the construction industry in Minneapolis represented by CTUL and Migrant Justice in Vermont; and also the textile industry in Bangladesh with the provisions that we created for our own reality.


So all we need is support. We are already on a path. And as we like to say, for a fight to succeed, it needs to include-- not to include a subject matter. It's not even including. It's actually letting the communities who are suffering lead the fight, and that's what we are doing.


Larry: Megan, I think of one of the things, to answer your question, of how do we see-- how do I see things moving forward, and I forget who used the term uncomfortable, I think people are finally starting to get uncomfortable with how their meat is produced. And a lot of that is educational, obviously, but it's going to take, I think, a lot of people being uncomfortable to finally say, "I don't like this, what can I do to help?"


That sounds very simplistic, probably, but just venues like what Farm Sanctuary is doing here today, hopefully you're uncomfortable-- I used to somewhat feel bad if a topic-- when I'm talking about environmental quality issues, water quality issues, and you could tell somebody was kind of like-- they're just kind of put off, I used to feel bad about that, not so much anymore. You need to be uncomfortable enough to make changes.


If you're sleeping on a lumpy mattress and it's uncomfortable, you're going to make a change. A very simplistic comparison, but the same type of thing applies. If what we're doing is uncomfortable to us, then change it. So I really appreciate all the diverse conversations and topics that have been covered today, and I hope it makes people uncomfortable, to be quite honest with you.


Amanda: Megan, just wanted to-- you were talking about what is the indicia, right? Like how do we know? And I guess just very anecdotally, when I first started, I could not have a conversation about food safety-- so like salmonella, E. coli-- and merge in the conversation that safe workers equals safe food. That was not allowed. No media outlet would even talk to me about that.


And certainly, funders didn't want to fund it, it just wasn't-- no one wanted to talk about that interplay. If you-- I remember-- it was a prominent animal welfare group, they said, "Oh, thank goodness for you, Amanda, because you're connecting our animal welfare issue to a food issue, and that's the only thing people care about."


And at that time, it was true. Like, that's how you got in the headlines. You couldn't advance an animal welfare story beyond Upton Sinclair's famous-- his sort of deathbed words when asked about The Jungle, his book The Jungle, and whether he was proud of his achievements and all the advancements that that book had made in the food safety system, and he responded with regard to his-- The Jungle, which was really about mistreatment of workers, right? He said, "I aimed for their hearts and I got their stomachs instead."


And I think where we're getting closer to the heart of things, and I know that, because we're having this conversation today, and 10 years ago, I knew the co-founder of Farm Sanctuary, he attended my conference, but he was a siloed aspect of the work. And now here we are 10 years later, and my perspective is an integrated aspect. Sindy, and Gerardo's-- all of these are coming together, the concept of systemic racism is now just part of our lexicon-- we speak this way now.


Now I'm not saying everybody wants to hear we have say, all right? I'm not saying that. It's not a kumbaya moment. We have not-- we're not at the top of the mountain, we are not at the top of the mountain, but we are no longer looking up, right? We have a different vantage, and it's [AUDIO OUT]


Sindy: Thank you for that question, Megan, and I will say that we have the saying-- and again, I come from a civil rights space where we know that your fight is our fight. "Tu lucha es mi lucha."


And I think, one, beginning to raise awareness for ourselves and educate ourselves on these various issues and the intersections of the issues is very important, and understanding that what you value is important, what others value is also important and being respectful, it's something that we always have to keep in mind. And I love what Megan said in terms of creating compassionate communities, and the truth is that you can't have holistically compassionate communities if you're excluding.


And we have to be really mindful even of our own thoughts, and oftentimes what I see is that we are so focused on our own mission and on what we deeply care about that we forget to see what's in the perimeters and where those intersections are.


And so my ask-- and I love how Gerardo put it, because this is something that you learn kind of in organizing 101, is that the individuals that are impacted directly are the ones that really need to be center staged and leading these movements, and our role is really to make sure that we support, that we give them the mic, as Amanda had put it in the beginning, and that we make sure that the world hears their voice, because there's no more powerful voice than the people who are directly impacted.


And as I think of all the essential workers, the children of people who have died, and the individuals who have survived this, right? Who have already been hospitalized, there's a lot of pain and there's already so much that we are experiencing here in America, that the world that is experiencing, and really, I think it's really, for us to take a moment to be even more conscientious, though we may be already awake, though we may be already involved, I think it's really taking that extra step to make sure we're thinking of all the different links that unite us as a community and that we practice that compassionate spirit, that we are compassionate in our approach to the different situations.


And I can tell you that this is the first time that I get invited into this space, and that sometimes just even bringing up the issue of immigration can be controversial. And I think this is a moment to really reflect on our own values and to also think how do we lock arms, understanding that your fight is my fight and that my fight is your fight.


Megan: Thank you, Sindy. And it's an incredible takeaway for all of us, I think. Before we do come to a close and go back off on our paths, I would love to offer folks the opportunity to share any other additional takeaways, things you want to be sure that our viewers today take with them, certainly any guidance that you would want to provide in terms of how they best find you, follow your work, become part of the solution, lock arms with you, as Sindy said. So any guidance on that front for the folks who are on with us today, I think they would love to hear.


Sindy: I will jump in here, and I will say, I think it's so important that we keep our eyes on what's going on in the farm working community, because I do think that they are really the heart of America, and they experience oftentimes first the conditions that are happening on the ground. And something that folks may not be aware of is that farm worker communities are excluded from federal bills in terms of benefits, in terms of increased wages or even bonuses.


And so these are individuals who wake up every single morning from dawn to dusk seven days a week to make sure that we have those juicy tomatoes on our plates or grapes or apples, and yet we're not really thinking of the impact of the farm working community. It's something that we learned that LULAC, is that because they were working long hours, by the time they were leaving work, when they got to the grocery store, they were not finding those essential food items that they needed for their families.


And so you know we need to really be cognizant that there are so many communities across this country that need our support, and we, I think, as community members can advocate for them in future bills that happen in Congress. And then I would say for those who are not familiar with LULAC, look us up, we're at lulac.org. We are, again, the oldest and largest national Latino civil rights organization. We do a lot of different work, and we would absolutely love to hear from you and you can always email us.


Larry: And I think I would just close by saying, if there's something that you have heard in this conversation today that in particular speaks to you, either through Farm Sanctuary or through finding us individually, if there's something about each one of us or one of us in particular that you feel you may have some opportunity to provide some help or some support, we all need support to move forward. And I would just encourage you, again, that if you've heard something today, whether it's environmental, whether it's communities, whether it's the farm workers, whether it's the meat packing workers, find something that you can say, "OK, I can put a couple hours into this a week." It doesn't take a lot of your time.


So support the different organizations that you're seeing here. Crystal Coast Waterkeeper, it's actually CoastalCarolinaRiverwatch.org, I'm going to throw that website out there for you. See the work that people are doing specifically for our waters. Our waters are the basic part of our lives and it connects-- there's that connectivity word again, it connects to everything else. But then also check out the other speakers today and see "Where can I just add some support?" And if nothing else, just clap your hands and say, good job.


Amanda: Well again, I just want to say thank you for this great, great opportunity. And just in closing, essential workers have essential voices. And we throw around that sort of saying, "Speak truth to power," but let me tell you something, power knows the truth. Power knows the truth. It's you, you the listener, that needs to listen to these essential voices. And so at Food Integrity Campaign, that's what we do, we help to lift up those voices.


And if you're interested in our campaigns and the different issue areas within the food system that we operate, I'd invite you to check us out at FoodWhistleblower.org. I promise you the food system is deeply flawed, and there's lots of entry points where you can help. And so I appreciate just having this time to talk.


Gerardo: And for my part, I would say-- I would say this. As workers, we produce 1 billion pounds a year of tomatoes-- just tomatoes, and that's without mentioning every other crop that we are involved with. We many times become invisible. And especially now, sometimes when people are just thinking about their own well-being, which is understandable, it's not a criticism, it's just-- we all are trying to see how to protect ourselves, our communities, and that's certainly understandable.


But we need to see beyond if we are to have a chance at succeeding in regards to the changes that need to happen long-term, while at the same time, we are focusing on what's going on right now. So in order-- in chronological order, COVID takes priority, obviously. And right now what I see is that rural America needs to wake up, but not necessarily about what's going on in their communities-- and by that, I'm talking about not just essential workers-- those are priority for us. Essential workers, whatever they are, in rural America need to be taken into account.


When you look at the map here in Florida, you'll see red areas, we're one of them-- Homestead is another one, Belle Glade is another one. What do they have in common? Well that we are hotspots. Immokalee is the second we've seen in-state that is now the epicenter, the second highest concentration of COVID-19 cases within the context of limited access to testing. It's truth with that.


The same has happened in other places where Smithfield plants are located in South Dakota, in Springdale, Arkansas you know there's an organization called Venceremos, check them out. They are also fighting against Tyson's practices, and they have been doing it for a while.


The reason why I'm mentioning this is because those abuses don't necessarily know geography, they're happening everywhere, but they are more concentrated wherever vulnerabilities are a little bit more deeper, and that is, right now, within the food system across the nation. The work to contain this virus, we cannot ignore what's going on in rural America, and that also extends to communities that might not be working necessarily on the food system but that are poor, where there are narratives that are damaging and dividing.


We need to be able to show people in general in this country that we need to have each other's back, that we need to be able to connect with those that are poor and misinformed also, and work together to change the narrative so that we don't let people that are in power get away with doing the minimum or sometimes nothing for these communities so that we can push them to be accountable.


We need to be able to talk a little bit more about those communities, because if there are no tomatoes or fruits and vegetables in people's plates or in the hospitals where people are recovering, that's when we come to mind as human beings. People don't necessarily pay much attention to that, so we need to help them. Help them look for those communities that are doing everything they can, risking their own lives in the process, to be able to feed the nation while sometimes going hungry. That's unconscionable, and we can do more about that.


So I would just say for more information, just check our website, ciw-online.org, and yeah, do what you can, we need to stand together on this one. Thank you.


Megan: Thank you. Thank you, and thank you all for your bold and exceptional leadership on these issues, even more so your ongoing commitment. I know many have been at this work for some time, and it has been a real honor to be able to listen to you today, to be able to learn from you today, and I think for each of us to be able to reflect on the various ways that each of us can do our part, whether that's individually, whether that's for us as an organization, whether that's collectively together to create the kind of change that we do want to see.


And lastly, before I turn back over to Kameke, I do want to thank Kameke, you and the team for bringing this conversation together today, and for really allowing this collective voice to take shape as we all look to advocate going forward. Thank you.


Kameke: Awesome. Thank you so much, everyone, it's been such a pleasure being in conversation with you all. Such beautiful insights and connections being made. And of course, I also want to thank our audience so much for joining us and taking part in this conversation as well. So definitely check out all of the different resources, sites, and things that our speakers mentioned. And if you haven't already, be sure to head on over to Farm Sanctuary's website, FarmSanctuary.org, to find out more about our other programs and offerings and also to sign up for updates to be alerted about future events. We really hope that you'll join us again soon. Thank you, everyone. Take care.