Happy Food Day! The Center for Science in the Public Interest has designated October 24 as a day “to address issues as varied as health and nutrition, hunger, agricultural policy, animal welfare, and farm worker justice.” It’s a good idea, and to mark the occasion, I’d share an organic apple from my CSA if I could.
But community Supported Agriculture, home gardens, and farmers’ markets aside, most of what we eat doesn’t jump straight from the soil to our mouths. In many cases, there’s hard work in between from not only farm workers but also food processing plant workers, warehouse laborers, truck drivers, supermarket employees, and restaurant workers – all of whom could use a little more justice in their work lives. Regarded as a whole, the country’s food system is the leading employer of minimum wage workers nationwide. That means raising the minimum wage would do a tremendous amount of good for workers in the food system. What’s more, it would cost us eaters very little.
