Students Share Why They Support Farmworkers

 

The collage at American University for Farmworker Awareness Week

Last week Bon Appétit Management Company cafés around the country celebrated the 13th Annual National Farmworker Awareness Week, which came to a close on Sunday, March 31, with farmworker organizer César Chávez’s birthday. As part of our efforts to make people think about who harvests their food, we asked students at colleges and universities to create a collage about why they support farmworker rights. Here’s how some thoughtful students from American University in Washington, DC;  Goucher College in Maryland; and Emmanuel College in Boston finished this sentence:

I support farmworker rights because…

The NFAW table and collage board at Emmanuel College

  • We really can’t sustain ourselves without them – if we didn’t have farmers, we’d be starving or we’d be back to eating potatoes and wild boar with every meal.
  • They do the “dirty work.” They deserve to be treated fairly!
  • Farmworkers are overlooked by all of us as a class of people. That’s not just!
  • I believe in a real food economy.
  • I support human rights!
  • I love real food and don’t want to feel guilty about how I’m getting it.
  • No farms means no food!
  • Their jobs affect us on a daily basis.
  • Farmworkers do some of the most important jobs in any society, but have been continually trodden upon in ours. Let’s live up to “liberty and justice for all.”
  • Farmworkers stuggle again unfair business model to perform one of the most important jobs in the world – feeding the masses. I respect their hard work, and wish they didn’t have to suffer such exhausting conditions.
  • Children should be able to go to school and be safe from pesticides.
 The specific reasons may have been different but the message was the same – farmworkers are an integral part of our food system and they deserve the fair and just treatment.