Farmworkers and their allies are calling for sensible and obtainable changes to the Worker Protection Standard, and the people that play an essential role in our daily sustenance deserve nothing less.

People are starting to realize that if we change the way we eat, we can change the way the food system works. We can grow food that is good for our health, good for our communities, and good for the planet. The winners of the Growing Green Awards are showing us how.

How could an ad celebrating the American farmer paint such a distorted picture of the people who actually work on farms today? The reality is that farmworkers are systematically underpaid and under-appreciated.

The physical conditions in the tomato fields were extreme. No shade, oppressively hot, with workers running with many pounds of tomatoes on their shoulders. I stood there fully aware that these workers are routinely exploited and sometimes physically enslaved. I had seen the overcrowded worker housing.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the remarkable farmworker organization in Florida that I have written about many times over the years as they continue to win victory after victory in their Campaign for Fair Food, has done it again.