Eliminating forced labor is an important starting point in creating a just and sustainable food supply, but most of us don’t know much about the working conditions involved in the production of our food. It is possible that the people who selected and processed some of the items on our dinner table worked under conditions that included force, fraud, coercion, or debt slavery.
In a study published July 24 at Natural Foodsresearchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and the University of Nottingham Rights Lab calculated the risk of forced labor in all aspects of the US food supply, excluding seafood.
They found that most of the dangers of forced labor come from animal-based proteins, processed fruits and vegetables, and processed foods—products like sweeteners, coffee, wine, and beer. They also found that 62% of the risk of forced labor comes from production or processing that takes place on US soil.
“We often think of our risk here in the US as coming from imports, but there’s a lot of risk that also comes from our food production at home,” said Jessica Decker Sparks, VG14, assistant professor at the Friedman School and senior author of the paper. “And that’s important because some of the more effective tools we use to try to eliminate or reduce the risk of forced labor in the US are trade bans or trade sanctions. They’re focused on imports.”
News reports highlight documented incidents of forced labor in low-income countries, particularly in the chocolate and coffee industries, but poverty, language barriers, and poor immigration conditions can create populations just as vulnerable to exploitation in the US as abroad.
Visas for seasonal agricultural workers, for example, tie workers to an employer they often rely on for housing and transportation. Workers don’t have many options when an employer withholds pay or verbally, physically, or sexually abuses them. By highlighting aspects of our food supply where the risk of forced labor is high, both inside and outside the country, the researchers hope to provide policymakers and companies with the information they need to act to prevent these types of abuse.
“We’re talking about a systemic issue,” said Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, assistant professor at the Friedman School and first and corresponding author of the paper. “This research is for policy makers to inform how we can change regulation, monitoring, and enforcement to prevent forced labor; and it is also for businesses and other actors in the supply chain who have the power to change conditions to reduce risk and work with workers to do so.
To calculate which areas of the food industry have the highest risk for this type of exploitation, researchers used data from the US Department of Labor and the Department of State as well as various reports from non-governmental organizations.
Along with study authors Bethany Jackson, senior research fellow at the University of Nottingham, and Edgar Rodríguez Huerta, research fellow at the University of Nottingham, they followed the supply chain for every land-based food commodity in the US, looking at every stage of production, the policies put in place at different locations, and any previous reports of forced labor. They also rely on investigative journalism sources, combing through 40,000 articles on forced labor in food commodities around the world for any documented incidents that may have been missed in other reports.
They found that risk is widespread in the US food system. Many of the high-risk products are hand-picked, such as tomatoes, berries, and citrus fruits, or those that require significant processing, such as boneless meat or apple juice concentrate. The goal is not to get consumers to stop buying a particular food—these actions can harm workers, the researchers said—but to prompt the systemic changes needed to create a food system that works for everyone.
“It’s about widening the lens,” Blackstone said. “We want to expand the conversation to make sure we’re not just focusing on our own health as individuals, but also the health and well-being of the people who work to bring food to our tables.”
The researchers emphasized that efforts should be made to guarantee decent work—not just to eliminate forced labor, the worst version of labor exploitation. In the US, worker-driven social responsibility programs such as Milk with Dignity and the Fair Food Program have made marked improvements in the working conditions of participating dairies and production operations. They provide a model that can be replicated and scaled up to help eliminate exploitative practices in other food industries.
“Risk assessments are only one part of the package,” Decker Sparks said. “We need to look at the strategies of how we respond, but also how we prevent the problem.
More information:
Nicole Tichenor Blackstone, The risk of forced labor is widespread in the US land-based food supply, Natural Foods (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-023-00794-x. www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00794-x
Provided by Tufts University
Citation: Risk of forced labor widespread in US food supply, study finds (2023, July 24) retrieved on July 25, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-07-labor-widespread-food.html
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