permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Elizabeth Henderson <elizabethhenderson13@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 27, 2017 at 9:26 AM
Subject: [SANET-MG] NOFA Protests Arrests of Farmworker Organizers
To: "comfood@elist.tufts.edu" <comfood@elist.tufts.edu>, "
nefood@elist.tufts.edu" <nefood@elist.tufts.edu>, GFJA List <
growing_foodandjustice@lists.riseup.net>, sanet-mg@googlegroups.com


March 23, 2017

For Immediate Release

*NOFA Protests Arrests of Farmworker Organizers*



With chapters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
York, Rhode Island and Vermont, the Northeast Organic Farming Association
(NOFA) is a non-profit organization of over 5,000 farmers, gardeners,
landscape professionals and consumers working to promote healthy food,
organic farming practices and a cleaner environment.



In the past several years NOFA has had the distinct fortune of working with
the Vermont-based Migrant Justice organization, whose stated mission “is to
build the voice, capacity, and power of the farm worker community and
engage community partners to organize for economic justice and human
rights. We gather the farm worker community to discuss and analyze shared
problems and to envision collective solutions.” In a number of aspects its
work parallels that of NOFA, including farm worker issues about the dignity
of work, achieving a livable wage, freedom from discrimination, and access
to health care. These issues are endemic to farmworkers across the
Northeast.



We have also found common bonding in our work to create a new paradigm in
the agricultural landscape in developing new relationships among buyers,
farmers, and farm workers. In this regard, particularly, we have had
occasion to work alongside both Enrique Balcazar and Zully Palacios, most
recently at one of our state chapter’s winter conferences last month in
Burlington, Vermont. Caesar Alex Carillo-Sanchez, detained last week, is
also an active member of Migrant Justice.



All three of these young people, Mr. Balcazar, Ms. Palacios and Mr.
Carillo, have garnered our respect for their commitment to the high ideals
of human dignity and worth inherent in our country’s principles. The NOFA
chapters look forward with great anticipation to developing and expanding
this nascent relationship. To keep any of them detained or deported would
be a severe blow. Vermont farms are fortunate to have workers like these
who care deeply about the quality of the products they are helping
produce.  When dairy farm workers are underpaid, impoverished and living in
poorly maintained and unsanitary housing, the milk from the farms where
they work will be of inferior quality and possibly even unsafe for human
consumption. In organizing with Migrant Justice, Enrique, Zully and Alex
are helping make the Vermont milk supply safer and healthier.



We urge their immediate release.



On behalf of the NOFA chapters,



Julie Rawson, Director of NOFA/MASS

Andrianna Natsoulas, Director of NOFA-NY

Enid Wonnacott, Director of NOFA-VT

Mark Hengen, NOFA-RI

Adrian Hale, Director NOFA-NJ

Jeff Cordulack, CT-NOFA
Monica Rico and John Martin, NOFA-NH





-- 
Let's continue to work for the triple bottom line -- ecologically sound,
economically viable, socially just and humane.





-- 
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared