Annelise Orleck: Invisible Farm Workers + Unconscious Consumers

Real Organic Podcast

#033: Labor historian and Dartmouth professor Annelise Orleck walks us through how our economy became filled with goods produced by invisible workers and the toll that reality has taken on our food system. She also speaks to the tremendous organizing power of the farm workers she interviewed while writing her book "We're All Fast Food Workers Now: The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages."
Annelise Orleck is a professor of history at Dartmouth College and the author of 5 books: Common Sense and a Little Fire: Women and Working Class Politics in the United States 1900-1965; The Soviet Jewish Americans; Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty; Rethinking American Women's Activism; and We're All Fast Food Workers Now: The Global Uprising Against Poverty Wages.
To watch a video version of this podcast please visit:
https://www.realorganicproject.org/annelise-orleck-invisible-farm-workers-unconscious-consumers-episode-thirty-three
The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.
The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States this year. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce. It also identifies pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs as compared to products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations).
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We believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be. But the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing small farms that follow the law. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but are still paying a premium price. The lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.
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