Workers breathing smoke to harvest crops isn't 'resilience' — it's a broken system, farmer says

Karen Clemmer 8/27/202:35 PM

By Scott Chang-Fleeman, August 26, 2020,

An unprecedented August lightning storm and we are back: fire season 2020. Images of masked farmworkers harvesting berries in smoky fields and brave farmers discing firebreaks emerge again on social media, with the hashtags #countystrong, #farmersareresilient, #wefeedyou.

Farmers are resilient. We are determined and passionate about our difficult work, and we are dedicated to feeding our communities despite the challenges inherent in food production. And in many ways, that resilience is a problem.

We have conflated resilience with sacrifice, and usually that sacrifice comes from our mostly Latinx workforce. We have let the values of toxic masculinity override the humanity of our people. A food system that falls apart without people breathing smoke to get strawberries on the table is not resilient.

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