Chain Gangs as Farmhands? feeling better about your food now?

[nosmokes]

if anything says that our food production system is screwed any better than this i don't know what it can be. we don't have farmers any more but corporations and overseers for farm workers that we pay so poorly and treat so badly that the only folks that will do the job are undoc aliens. and if we turn that supply off then we hafta rely on prison inmates?
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original-grist

Food and Punishment
Colorado's inmates-as-farmworkers plan says plenty about our food culture
By Tom Philpott
15 Mar 2007
Last summer, the Colorado General Assembly passed some of the nation's most rigorous anti-immigrant policy laws. Debate was fierce -- but only because some GOP lawmakers fumed that the Democratic-engineered crackdown wasn't draconian enough.

How times have changed.

Essentially, the state's political elite -- backed editorially by The Denver Post -- took aim at its low-wage workforce: the people who clean bedpans, prep food in restaurants, harvest vegetables, and perform other "low-value" tasks.

The new code denied most "nonessential" services, including non-emergency health care, to undocumented workers (although it didn't exempt them from paying sales tax). It also upped identification requirements to get driver's licenses, and penalized businesses for not confirming workers' documentation.

While lawmakers congratulated themselves on their foresight -- or deplored their inability to enact harsher sanctions -- immigrants began to flee Colorado. And now the state's large-scale farms, which are almost comically reliant on immigrant labor for profitability, are begging the state government to help them find workers for the growing season.
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complete article here

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Well, that makes me feel bad about the prison system.

I don't know why that would make me worry about food.

:shrug:

[Nicole]

2. I doubt if they get many workers.

"The prison program is voluntary, and inmates will receive 60 cents a day for their labor. (Farmers will pay the state a rate roughly equal to the going wage for farm labor: about $9 per hour.)"

How many inmates are going to volunteer to do hard labor for 60¢ a day?

[nosmokes]

5. since there aren't any *soft* labor options in prison and the pay is 60¢ or $0

i imagine they'll get quite a few takers. it beats hell outta sitting in a cell. but i'm not sure how long term they'll be.

[TwilightGardener]

3. Um--they ARE prisoners--what's wrong with picking veggies? Do they

not owe a debt to society, or am I missing something here? I picked veggies as a kid. Wasn't that bad!

[Sequoia]

4. Ba, ba, ba, bum, that's the sound of the men working on the chain ga-A-a-ng!

[TwilightGardener]

6. BWAH!

[TwilightGardener]

7. Also: Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders: "Back on the Chain Gang"

[A Simple Game]

8. Do they not want to get even with the "man"

by pissing on his lettuce?

Let's hope not.

Be sure to wash your veggies when you get them home.

[kimmerspixelated]

9. Another good reason to grow yur own!