Friday, October 27, 2023

"End the discriminatory treatment of farmworkers"

"THIS SEASON’S TORRENTIAL, climate-driven rain and floods devastated the Massachusetts farm economy, damaging over 110 farms, 2700 acres and causing millions in crop losses. Fortunately, the state and federal governments, as well as individuals and philanthropies, quickly responded to farmers’ pleas for emergency relief. Those responses should be loudly applauded.

But what about farmworkers? Recall that farmworkers were among those lauded as “essential” during the COVID epidemic for their heroic efforts that kept us all fed.  But collective short-term memory fades quickly. The current emergency farm relief efforts offer no direct assistance to Massachusetts’ 13,000 farmworkers and their families – more than 2,500 who work in Hampshire and Franklin counties alone."

~ Harris Freeman

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/opinion/end-the-discriminatory-treatment-of-farmworkers/

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