Migrant Justice comes to Smith!

14 Dec

Hi! I am Diana one of the interns at CEEDS. I will post more about myself soon, but for now I wanted to share about a recent event that I went to:

On Thursday, November 16, Abel Luna, a speaker from Migrant Justice gave a talk at Smith, which was co-hosted by two campus orgs: Smith Students for Food Justice (SSFJ) and Organizing for Undocumented Students Rights (OUSR).

Migrant Justice is a farm worker-led organization that works to improve working conditions for dairy farmers in Vermont, a state which produces a lot of ice cream and cheese. They organize migrant workers mostly from Mexico and Central America who, in the words of Luna, “do the work that most people don’t want to do.” Their mission is to build the voice, capacity, and power of the farm worker community and engage community partners in organizing for economic justice and human rights.

After campaigning for 2.5 years, Migrant Justice finally succeeded in getting Ben & Jerry’s to join their Milk with Dignity program. By joining the program, Ben & Jerry’s signed an agreement to establish labor standards and an enforcement strategy.

Luna, the speaker, explained their organizing strategy as a spiral model which starts at the center with farm worker’s experiences.

Migrant Justice’s organizing model.

He also mentioned the way in which conversations about food justice often revolve around food being local and organic. While Vermont farmers tend to pride themselves in saying this, and use these such terms to market their products, they rarely include fair conditions and wages for their workers in their definition of food justice.

The Real Food Challenge, however, does include conditions of farm and food chain workers in their definition of real food. Smith signed the Real Food Challenge in the fall of 2016, and Dining Services continues to work to increase the amount of “real food” it purchases. Smith students brought Migrant Justice to campus to talk more about food justice, and highlight their concern that Smith continue to commit to purchasing food that is fair and real in all the ways as defined by the Real Food Challenge.