A high school teacher talks to pupils about how, when President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal extended labor rights to the United States in the 1930s, the policy primarily ignored farm employees.
Climate change could push produce prices higher
Elaine Casap/Unsplash
Agricultural labor is the only occupation in the United States where youngsters as young as 12 years old can still legally work infinite hours," the teacher explained, as per AZ Central.
Ibaez characterizes the documentary as a coming-of-age narrative, with the uncommon addition of a working woman of color.
The film follows Ashley Pavon, a Mexican-American kid who works after school in the fields near her home on California's Central Coast, picking strawberries to support her undocumented single mother.
Her sympathetic journey through high school, friendships, prom, dating, and sibling interactions is punctuated by long hours of agricultural labor, obligations beyond her youth, and sleep deprivation that is less aligned with the American dream. Her existence is also connected with climate change, and her future is dependent on whether forthcoming legislation addresses it.
The 74-minute "Fruits of Labor" was presented last month as part of the Center for Biological Diversity's Food Justice Film Festival in Tucson.
It was included to a 2022 lineup of films highlighting a variety of equity concerns relating to food production, including a Native Hawaiian village opposing pesticide exposure and Black farmers fighting prejudice from the United States.
The Department of Agriculture and an organic gardener are assisting young people who are fleeing gang violence.
Each film highlighted the struggles of a different minority community navigating the global food system, and each elucidated a different definition of "food justice."
The issue is rooted in agricultural labor conditions and wages, according to Ibaez, who has a doctorate in anthropology and is based in Oakland.
"Food justice occurs when all individuals have access to nutritious food."
The real perversion is that you have people picking food they'd never be able to buy," Ibaez said in an interview with The Arizona Republic.
You have corporations in the berry industry making billion-dollar profits, but your workers can't buy healthy foods or have the time to prepare them and feed their families, Ibaez said.
In the film, Ashley's instructor portrays the dilemma to her students as something that did not happen by chance.
During his annual address to Congress in 1938, Roosevelt reportedly asked Congress to assist him in "ending starvation wages and intolerable hours."
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, part of the New Deal, established a 44-hour maximum workweek, and a 25-cent minimum hourly wage, and prohibited oppressive child labor in many industries.
If climate change affects the amount of food produced, it stands to reason that it will also reduce the amount of food available to humans, as per Concern Worldwide.
This basic example of supply and demand, however, has far-reaching consequences. If one component of the food chain is disrupted as a result of a climatic catastrophe (large or little), this might lead to inflation.
This has occurred in the last two years, following the suspension of international trade due to COVID-19.
These price increases disproportionately affect the poorest families; according to one research, persons living in metropolitan areas below the poverty line spend up to 75% of their income on food alone.
Many of the world's poorest countries rely on agriculture as their primary sector, which means that households eat seasonally based on what their crops (and those of their neighbors) bring in.
Families frequently miss one or more meals each day during the "hungry seasons," when the previous source of food has been depleted and the following harvests are not yet ready to harvest.
Climate warming has extended these hunger seasons in many locations.
Hunger and malnutrition are both quantity and quality concerns. Both are affected by climate change.
According to research, increasing carbon dioxide concentrations in plants diminish their protein, zinc, and iron content.
An estimated 175 million individuals may suffer from zinc deficiency by 2050. Protein deficiency may affect 122 million people by that time.
Aside from plant-based nutrition, climate change impacts the quality of animals, which consume, grow, and produce meat, eggs, and/or milk using the same resources as people. Cattle, goats, and other animals account for 36% of total drought-related losses (crops account for the remaining 49%).
Similarly, temperature extremes endanger fish populations, particularly in Southeast Asia.
