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In March 1933, within weeks of his inauguration, President Franklin Roosevelt sent legislation to Congress aimed at providing relief for unemployed American workers. He proposed the Civilian Conservation Corps to provide jobs in natural resource conservation. Over the next decade, the CCC put more than three million young men to work in the nation's forests and parks, planting trees, building […]

New Entry Sustainable Farming Project & the Conservation Law Foundation are teaming up to hold a workshop that will provide an overview of key employment issues that farmers need to know. The workshop will be presented by Mary O'Neal, Partner at Conn Kavanaugh, and employment law expert. From apprenticeships to agricultural minimum wage, the workshop will cover […]

We don't often see mainstream media outlets report on the often invisible farm workers that hold up so much of American agriculture-- let alone do in depth and humanizing interviews with them. So, in case you missed it, we wanted to bring your attention to a series created by Dan Charles for NPR's The Salt in which […]

[vimeo 52870881 w=640 h=360] The Hand That Feeds trailer from Robin Blotnick, a film on reforming the food system by organizing from the ground up for fair wages, fair working conditions, and collective bargaining rights. This is a rare story in which workers, with tenacity beyond imagination, are actually able to defeat the giant. It is […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdY2jAJfARI] Read our blog post from yesterday for more info! Today the walkers are walking from Garrison to Wappingers Falls.

Walking the 200 miles from Long Island to Albany, protesters stopped at City Hall in New York City last Saturday chanting si se puede. According to Democracy Now!, the protesters are walking in support of the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act (more about this from the ACLU), asking that farm workers have the right to collective bargaining, an optional […]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJTVF_dya7E] On the one hand, it is great to see how far we've come. And on the other, it is pretty difficult to accept how far we haven't. Pay close attention at 19:00 minutes to what one farm employer has to say about working conditions, wages, and his workers dispositions.

   Here's some good evidence about how NAFTA undermines farmers, not only  domestically, but also in the countries where we " free trade" This article from The Nation focuses on pigs, who eat corn.  For nearly two decades, Smithfield has used NAFTA and the forces it unleashed to become the world’s largest packer and processor of […]

ATTN:: Open Meeting: Northeast Gathering on Domestic Fair Trade Friday August 14, 2015 9:00 am-12:30pm Campus Center 903 UMASS, Amherst This Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) Summer Conference Free Meeting, sponsored by The Domestic Fair Trade Committee of NOFA’s Interstate Council’s (IC) Policy Committee, invites activists from the Northeast Region who are engaged in projects […]