Fresh Talk Blog
Tom Karst Let's face it, it is hard to quantify the value of First Lady Michelle Obama's endorsement of fresh vegetables and fruit. Another example was noted with the first lady's recent prodding of Jay Leno to eat vegetables.
From the AP story:
First lady Michelle Obama cajoled Jay Leno into nibbling on apples, sweet potato fries and a pizza made with eggplant, green peppers and zucchini on the "Tonight Show," breaking his long-held aversion for all-things-healthy in his diet.
Whatever you may think of the "politics" of President Obama, produce marketers are very nearly obliged to vote for him just on the weight of his wife's work for the industry.
Speaking of cajoling, Lorelei DiSogra of United Fresh and other industry advocates have long pushed the USDA to expand purchases of fresh produce for child nutrition feeding programs. DiSogra has been particularly vocal about the need for more kid-friendly value-added produce purchases. The USDA recently announced the purchase of baby carrots by USDA AMS commodity procurement. Fresh cut apple slices were the first value added produce purchased by the agency, and now baby carrots have joined the party. The USDA awarded Veg-Pro Inc., of Bakersfield with $290,000 in baby carrot buys.
The New York Times ran an opinion piece yesterday called, "Finally, good news about school lunches." Author Mark Bittman takes another swing or two at potatoes, though, which potato marketers have come to expect from media types. The public relations folks for potatoes need to design a sophisticated program to reach out to consumer media and other thought leaders, because potatoes are consistently being crushed as a "second class vegetable."
An obscure proposed rule published by the USDA about a month ago is attracting some serious attention.
United Farm Workers and the National Council of Farm Cooperatives have both weighed in on the proposed rule on Agriculture Acquisition; Labor Law Violations. From the UFW:
USDA is in a unique and powerful position to improve the living and working conditions of farmworkers. USDA’s “Labor Law Violations” Rule provides an opportunity to ensure that the widespread labor law violations impacting farmworkers are not present at the farms that are part of its agricultural acquisition process. The inclusion in the “Labor Law Violations” Rule of an obligation to certify compliance as to the “subcontractors of any tier” is especially important given the large role labor contractors play in the agricultural workforce and the strong correlation of labor law violations with farm labor contractors.
This language will require farmers to have an increased incentive to know what is happening on their farms and with their labor contractors and will foster a culture of compliance. USDA’s commitment to “vigorously pursue corrective action against the contractor and/or any tier subcontractor” provides an additional incentive for contractors to ensure that their operations are law-abiding and to assume responsibility for the actions of all of the contractors. Finally, the language that USDA considers a “certification under this clause to be a certification for purposes of the False Claims Act” creates additional mechanisms for enforcement of farmworker labor protections. Farmworkers will benefit greatly from increased labor law compliance.
We commend USDA for recognizing the need for integrity and lawfulness in its acquisition process and for recognizing the role it can play in ensuring that the growers who supply its fruits, vegetables and other foods are law-abiding and responsible and that the farmworkers who toil to harvest and produce the food are treated fairly.
An opposing view, from the National Council of Farm Cooperatives:
NCFC strongly opposes the inclusion of this provision, and asks that the rule be withdrawn. We have three main concerns regarding this provision. The first is that this action will have a significant and negative effect on a cooperative's ability to contest National Labor Relations Act issues, because if the company loses it will be regarded as having been in violation even when contesting an issue in good faith.
Second, the economic consequences of this will be drastically magnified because this new contract provision will be subject to False Claims Act enforcement.
Third and most importantly, the agriculture community has been forthright about our need for a legal workforce—to date, much of our workforce remains undocumented. The continued production of labor-intensive agricultural crops and products in the U.S., ranging from dairy and livestock to fruit and vegetable and tree nuts, cannot be accomplished without the vitally important labor provided by skilled and experienced farm workers. Being one step removed from the producer, the co-ops entering into contracts with USDA have no ability to ascertain the immigration status of workers on hundreds or in some cases thousands of individual operations. In addition, the provision imposes special burdens on farmer co-ops, whose suppliers are also member-owners of the co-op, by in effect turning the cooperative into an enforcement agent for federal immigration laws.
TK:The proposed rule was supposed to be non-controversial, the USDA said in December. Quite the opposite, as it turns out. Nothing about farm labor is non-controversial.
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