The Freedom Project team spoke with partners at every level of the Fair Food Program. Traveling from the tomato fields of Florida to the produce aisles of Whole Foods, the report documents workers’ stories of the unprecedented changes in Florida’s tomato industry, the CIW’s unique worker-to-worker education process, the Fair Food Standards Council’s in-depth auditing and enforcement efforts, the participating growers’ investments in creating a safe and respectful work environment, and the participating buyers’ critically important commitment to back the Program’s human rights-based code of conduct with real market consequences for growers who violate the code.
CNN on Fair Food Program: “How America’s ‘ground-zero’ for modern slavery was cleaned up by workers’ group…”
This week, the award-winning team at the CNN Freedom Project — a new series designed to “amplify the voices of the victims of modern-day slavery, highlight success stories and help unravel the tangle of criminal enterprises trading in human life” — turned its spotlight on the CIW and the Fair Food Program, and the result is nothing short of stunning. With a remarkable economy and clarity of presentation, the three-part video report manages to capture both the unique interplay of the Fair Food Program’s multiple monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and the transformative impact of the Program on workers’ lives every day in the fields. Together, the three short videos depict the dramatic genesis of dignity and respect in a place where unimaginable abuse had been the norm for generations.