A movement based on a holistic understanding of food justice needs to encompass the chain of food production that connects seeds to mouths. The food chain includes the workers that help to plant the seeds, harvest the crops, package the food, deliver the product and serve the meal to consumers.

The report is particularly interesting in what it reveals about Latino workers in the food system. As the graph below demonstrates, Latinos make up just 15.4% of the US population, but 25% of total food workers.

Despite being the most represented racial minority in food work, Latinos have the lowest median annual wage of all food workers, at $18,438/year. The median annual wage of all people of color is $19,349. For Black food workers, the median annual wage is $19,523. For Asian food workers it is $23,427, and White food workers make an annual median wage of $25,024.

The race/gender gaps in wages and management positions are also striking. Compared to a white man’s $1.00, Latino men make $0.66, and Latina Women make $0.50. Only 8.5% of managerial positions in the food system are held by Latino men, and 4.5% are held by Latina women. People of color in managerial positions also earn significantly less than White managers.

I recommend a look through the entire report; it presents the fact, clear as day: Good Food, Real Food, Sustainable Food — whatever we want to call it, it has to include justice, goodness, real wages, and sustainable lifestyles for producers, processors, distributors… all food workers.

Audio:

The whole interview is about 2 hours, but it is only after 30 minutes that things get a more articulated representation of the work we are doing to build a regional system that can support a new system for promoting economic development my maximizing the regional assets in the food and agriculture sector.

If you are very interested in what we do, this interview pulls out a lot of material that is hard to get into a document, and although we are working on writing down the whole system in a formal publication, this is a great preview of what will come later.

Than you Jaci for such a wonderful support of this important work in our community.

Community Action Center’s Newcomer Project gives aid

By JACI SMITH
Managing Editor

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

NORTHFIELD – Two local programs with common goals have joined forces to help newcomers to Northfield find work and get involved in the community.

The Northfield Community Action Center and the Latino Enterprise Center have formed a partnership to develop new community leaders and create jobs for Latinos and other new residents.

The CAC’s Newcomer Project had been focused for the last year on employment and housing. Joining up with the LEC, which has been developing ways to connect Latinos with the greater Northfield community, fills a need, said CAC Executive Director Jim Blaha.

The CAC will use part of a bequest it received from the Davis Taylor-Ana Ortiz de Montellano family to fund part of LEC director Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin’s salary. The family had requested that the money be used to create the kind of unconditional hospitality that Davis Taylor said he experienced while he was with his future wife de Montellano’s family in Mexico.

Haslett-Marroquin was splitting his time between the LEC, which was unpaid, and his work statewide for the League of Rural Voters. With the new full-time position, Haslett-Marroquin will be able to devote twice as much time specifically to Northfield.

“His ability to meet with the newcomer community and find ways to make bridges to them is a significant expertise,” said Blaha. “His belief in entrepreneurial development will bring us new community leaders. Entrepreneurs are the ones who work to get things done and that will lead to bigger and better things for Northfield.”

Haslett-Marroquin said in recent months, he had begun to wonder whether the LEC would find a serious, committed partner so that the fledgling program would continue to grow. The LEC, which began in February of this year, has undertaken projects to introduce Latino farmers to growing alternative crops such as hazelnuts and black beans, to broker a partnership between a local Latino businessman and ARTech to repair used computers, and to dispel myths about the immigrant community in Northfield.

Haslett-Marroquin said the LEC wants to ensure that the Latino community can tap into its leadership ability by connecting with those resources available to them that Latinos may not always know about.

“There is a lot we haven’t discovered yet,” Haslett-Marroquin said. “In the geography of CAC, Rice County, there is a lot more potential within the Latino community. The projects we have now are just samples of what is to come.”

- Jaci Smith can be reached at jsmith@northfieldnews.com or 645-1116.

You can read the article below, or directly by clicking on the link above.