Food and Agriculture Organization

• Television crime shows often are set in cities, but in its third season, ABC’s “American Crime” took a different tack.
• It opened on a tomato farm in North Carolina, where it showed a young woman being brutally raped in a field by her supervisor.
• “People die all the time on that farm.
• Studies show that 80% of Mexican and Mexican American women farmworkers in the U.S. have experienced some form of sexual harassment at work.

Vulnerable workers

• Unfortunately, farm workers often buy into the myth that women bring sexual harassment on themselves.
• Immigrant women farm workers are vulnerable because of power imbalances in their male-dominated workplaces.
• Women represent 28% of the nation’s farm workers, making them a minority on many farms.
• Female farm workers also face a gender wage gap of about 6%, partly because of parenting responsibilities that limit the number of hours they can work.

The role of child labor

• While much-needed reporting has generated a public outcry against arduous work conditions for migrant child laborers, migrant children have worked in agriculture in the U.S. for decades – legally.
• Agriculture holds a special status under federal labor laws, which permit farm owners to hire children as young as 12.
• The bill would help address the vulnerability of young girls in farm work by aligning the legal farm working age with other industries.

Are guest worker visas the answer?

• Since one major driver of the threat of violence against female farm workers is the fact that many of them are undocumented, could expanding the national H-2A agricultural guest worker visa program be a solution?
• This program, at least in theory, addresses several of the structural vulnerabilities of female farm workers.
• Guest worker visa programs can actually make workers more likely to tolerate abusive situations, because the workers’ legal status in the U.S. by definition is tied to their employment.
• Guest workers are often particularly fearful of employer retaliation if they complain about sexual abuse.
• In our view, guest worker visa programs institutionalize workers’ uncertain position instead of solving it.

A path forward

• We agree with the U.N. that sweeping change is needed to empower women, raise farm productivity and promote human rights in the global food system.
• As U.S. lawmakers craft the next farm bill, they could do enormous good for women around the world by setting an example in American fields and farms.
• Second, legalizing the nation’s approximately 283,000 unauthorized farm workers would make those workers less vulnerable to sexual abuse by expanding employment opportunities outside of the agricultural sector.
• Bills proposing a pathway to legalization for agricultural workers have focused on providing enough labor for farm employers.

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• BANGKOK, Thailand, July 18, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- World seafood leader Thai Union Group PCL announced today the launch of SeaChange ® 2030, the next stage of its sustainability strategy to help reshape the seafood industry with solutions across people and planet that better sustain a future for all.
• The time for change is now.
• That’s why Thai Union is committing the equivalent of its entire 2022 net profit of THB 7.2 billion (USD 200 million) to SeaChange® through 2030 and setting aggressive new goals that will impact the entire seafood value chain on a global scale.
• Thai Union is collaborating with some of the most impactful players in global sustainability and eco-leadership to launch its next stage strategy as the seafood industry’s leading agent of change, engaging thousands of vessels and farms to meet these goals.

• Compared to pre-pandemic levels, 122 million more people face hunger today.
• While average global hunger rates fell slightly in 2022, there are sharp regional disparities, with hunger rising in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean.
• Across Africa, 11 million more people suffer from hunger now compared to the previous year.
• According to Action Against Hunger's 2023 Hunger Funding Gap report, there is a shocking 53% gap in hunger funding for countries facing "crisis" levels of hunger or worse.