Redesigning Agricultural Labor

I’ve spent the past 30 years working for farmworker unions  to improve the lives of farm workers. Between all three major farmworker unions in the US, we've organized just under 2% of the farmworker population.  I co-founded the successful multi-stakeholder organization Equitable Food Initiative, where we have impacted over 50,000 workers in four countries, generating more than $10 million in bonuses from retailers.  I also led the founding of CIERTO, a non-profit dedicated to the transparent and ethical international recruitment of farmworkers. This year, CIERTO  will facilitate the training, recruitment and dispatch of just over 1,600 women and men to farms in the US. The International Labor Organization recently named CIERTO a “best practice” I recently led the negotiations with Washington State agricultural employers on a set of regulations to protect farmworkers from  COVID 19 making it only the second State in the US to have legally binding rules.  

Around the world, fewer and fewer people want to work in the fields as farmworkers. The pay is low, conditions poor and often unsafe. 

There are few professions as dignified as feeding the world. Both the EFI and CIERTO posit that farm workers are capable, knowledgeable, skilled professionals who create value. The opportunity is to take the successes of these two organizations, identify the synergies and missing elements, and go to scale. I plan to leave my current position with the UFW to focus full time on this endeavor working as a consultant to the EFI. We will  impact 500,000 workers in four  countries in the next ten years.

The COVID 19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of our food supply. Our program will increase its resilience, while bringing new-found respect, self-esteem and increased earnings to the essential women and men who work in the fields.

We will make agricultural work a respected, attractive  profession that’s economically viable for workers and their employers.  We need to do so at scale to meet the increasingly urgent needs globally.

Farmworkers, be they in the US, Canada, Mexico or even Israel, face chronic wage theft, sexual violence in the workplace, one of the highest injury and fatality rates of any industry, and an increased incidence of human trafficking. None of the interventions to date, including litigation, advocacy, or unionization, have been successful in reversing these trends.  As the labor shortage becomes more acute, unscrupulous and unregulated recruiters  troll the poorest of the poor countries  to recruit residents desperate for an opportunity to increase their earnings 4-10 times abroad.  Studies show that for every dollar a consumer spends on produce, somewhere between $.11 and $.18 comes back to the farm, which increasingly is below growers' cost of production.  Major retailers and brands have endured a never ending series of scandals about conditions in their supply chains, combined with interruptions of those chains due to inadequate labor to perform the tasks necessary to get products to market. Absent a change in paradigm, these trends will only grow worse. 

To generate a TURN-KEY AG SCALED OPERTIONAL PLATFORM.

We'll do so in two phases. The first phase will use the “prototype” from EFI & CIERTO to enrich and better integrate the systemic model including issues of governance, capital and ownership, business process and operational execution, supply chain patterns and farmworker & farm management organization design and entrepreneurial process.

Our work to date with both the EFI and CIERTO have identified two shortcomings; 1) a pool of trained, competent managers and 2) a proactive plan to integrate technology into agriculture in a way that fortifies rural communities and enhances the work experience.

We'll iterate different forms of this model on farms to learn which approach(es) best establish the foundation needed for Phase two. 

 PHASE TWO: Implementation of the TURN-KEY SOLUTION / PLATFORM in the broader marketplace with appropriate infrastructure to sustain it to impact 500,000 workers in four countries in next ten years. 

 Costco's senior leadership, growers and farmworkers in the US, Canada, Mexico and Israel have expressed strong interest. This project is not speculative, rather it's responsive to real life interest and experience.

This is a farmworker driven project. The active participation of farmworkers in the design of this project will be absolutely critical for its success. To be frank, this project is not my idea: it's what farmworkers have been demanding for  decades; respect, dignity, a profession, stablity, and economic resilience. A key success indicator will be how our work changes or not the lives of farmworkers to meet the above stated goals. 

Many farmworkers are members of at least two communities; their communities of origin and where they work. As they establish roots where they work, they often continue to send money "back home" and even continue to participate in local politics. I've seen many workers dream about going home, but most are never able to do so. 

This project is also about consumers, and in the context of the pandemic, increasing the resilience of the food supply chain. The near melt-down of the meat packing industry showed in fact the tenuous nature of our food supply. Absent intentional intervention, there is nothing preventing a similar or even worse interruption of our food supply with fruits and vegetables. 

Farmworkers in the US and in many developed countries are immigrants; many out of sight, out of mind. The COVID 19 pandemic has, in a word, raised the importance of farmworkers, deeming them "essential". But for too many of these workers, the requisite support and recognition has not been forthcoming. By focusing on changing the paradigm of farm labor, we will elevate how agricultural professionals see themselves, how their families see them, and how society at large views them so finally affords these essential women and men are afforded the respect they're due.

Several years ago, the UFW convened an international meeting in Brazil of coffee pickers.  We asked workers what was the most important change we could bring about together. After much conversation and even tears, they said they dream of the day their children are proud of them as farm workers and not ashamed of them as they are now.

Our decades long fight for collective bargaining, lobbying for better rules, advocating for increased enforcement, and supporting litigation in response to workplace violations. These actions  have been inadequate to bring about systematic change for farmworkers and the context they work in. 

My experience with both CIERTO and the EFI demonstrate we can create a different future. Both organizations bring together unlikely partners from across the supply chain, both organizations coalesced around a common mission and vision. Both have changed the way farmworkers see themselves, no longer as victims or unskilled, replaceable workers, but as valued, skilled professionals. There are growers and a major retailer who see the benefit to them and are asking that we re-iterate these programs to go bigger and deeper. 

We know what works and what doesn't work.  The need is urgent and opportunity right before us.

My god children grew up ashamed of their farmworker parents. As hard as  their parents worked, they could never earn the true respect of their children. Coffee workers in Brazil echoed those sentiments.  I've had the opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder around the world with the  women and men who put food on our table.  They are proud of the work they do, yet frustrated, angry, and hurt that society (and many times their own children) see their work as lesser than.  I've stood with the families who lost a loved one due to a needless workplace accident; I've stood with women and men who've been the victims of sexual violence in the workplace. I've been invited into homes of workers to share a meal, their only meal of the day.  Many of these women and men possess skills and knowledge that surpasss anything learnable in school. Yet they're largely seen as unskilled and by definition as farm workers, ignorant. These are the essential women and men who feed us; who in the time of this pandemic, we call essential. Absent their pain and sacrifice, we literally would not eat.  As a society, we can and must do better.

I'm strongly anchored to the farmworker community. My role is to make purposeful connections with others who share my vision of a mutually beneficial agricultural model but also to work hard to persuade others who do not share this vision. I hope my passion incites their passion and encourages them to lead change locally, and that my experiences can help them learn how to deal with the ongoing challenges. I believe my gift is to help others see where the opportunity for growth and change is amidst the crisis and chaos so together, we can act with impact.

I see my role as a mentor for “boundary spanners” in our agricultural community to help them see the roles and competencies this entails.

First, as an “interpreter”, learning how to build successful interpersonal relationships, communicating effectively through deep listening and empathizing, framing, and sense-making of the prevailing context, building trust and respect of diversity and culture.

Second, as an “Innovator”, brokering contributions from all parties, tolerating risk, and enabling innovative and creative solutions by all.

Third, as a “Networker”, appreciating and working with different modes of governance, enabling shared accountability, and understanding power and having the political skills and diplomacy to deal with its overt and hidden forms .

My experience has led to the  successful  development of two multi-stakeholder efforts. I've had first hand experience with almost every traditional change tool; advocacy, litigation, and union organizing. I know too well their specific limitations. 

The COVID 19 pandemic has hit farmworkers hard. Following the failure of grower organizations to respond to UFW's call  to work with us to address this unique threat, we retreated to the trenches. Together with farmworkers, we generated dozens of media stories about how workers, their families and communities were being put at risk. The UFW sued the State of WA to demand they initiate emergency rule making. We fought tooth and nail to protect essential farm workers.

When the first set of rules were finally proposed, they contained provisions the growers felt they couldn’t live with.  So every grower organization in the State came together and asked  if the UFW would be willing to talk about a different way forward. We agreed. My grower colleague and I then defined our mission statement; “In the face of an unprecedented crisis, we believe all participants in the food supply chain must collaborate to protect and promote the health and safety of agricultural workers and protect our nation's food supply." From there, we worked to develop rules for agricultural worksites, temporary seasonal housing and grower-provided transportation.   90% of what we developed has now been enshrined into regulation.

I recently hosted a reporter from the NY Times who wanted to see working conditions in the fields firsthand during the pandemic. We accompanied a group of workers who led us to the field where they were picking cherries. Conditions could not have been worse. Workers had no masks, bathrooms had no toilet paper, handwashing stations were distant, poorly stocked and filthy. The workers we spoke with were angry about the low pay and poor conditions. Management was completely indifferent.  

I  knew there's another side to this experience; where workers are engaged, management making every effort to ensure the essential women and men harvesting our food remain safe. So I called a grower colleague and encouraged her to set up a tour at her farm or at a similar location. Her cherries weren't yet ripe; not a single grower she contacted wanted the reporter on site. I could have left the story there; but instead called a large grower I know. I explained the situation and he agreed to open up his orchard for us to visit. The reporter was able to see first-hand what a more competent management structure looked likes, as well as an engaged workforce.

While Phase One work will be initially housed in the EFI as an innovation project in which I will be the project lead, the intent is to create a stand-alone, market driven answer to farm labor.

Once the TURN-KEY AG OPERTIONAL PLATFORM  design is complete, the next phase will be to scale the platform-ecosystem approach and that will require further design of  organizational aspects with a variety of partners to drive market uptake, coordinate delivery and engage in a process of continuous learning and improvement with all partners.

This project is disruptive by design. Our starting premise is that the traditional approaches to address farm labor issues are inadequate to create the solution we seek. So we disrupt by combining unlikely partners; farmworkers, growers, retailers/buyers, each of whom bring critical knowledge and insight based on their engagement with agricultural production. We combine that knowledge with the proven success of the EFI and CIERTO in creating multi-stakeholder organizations. 

Technology is coming to speciality agriculture. With our socio-technical systems perpsective, opportunity is ours to guide its implementation so that it builds resilience rather than undermining rural economies. We need to ensure the application of technology enhances the work experience, rather than further subjugating workers and possibly even their employers. 

Together, we co-create a way forward none of us could imagine alone. But perhaps even more importantly, we know this is not a linear journey, but one that will entail multiple iterations. Fail faster to learn faster; and in doing so, we also build trust and important relationships that transcend the supply chain. The second related component is that of having a specific vision for where we want agriculture to go. Our working vision disrupts everything; how farmworkers see themselves, how growers see their employees, how retailers see their supply chain, and how consumers understand the importance of agricultural professionals and the system in which they are embedded.

The complexity of transforming existing farm labor into agricultural professionals is such that no one stakeholder can unilaterally achieve success. We need to make sure the right experts are in the room, those with both the knowledge and power to make change. This includes farmworkers, growers and retailers engaging as equally knowledgeable content experts. Having said that, there are dramatic differences in power. The retailers/brands have economic superiority and can drive grower behavior. Our experience has been absent retailer engagement, few of the innovations at the farm level are enduring; either the resulting efficiencies are captured off farm and/or lower cost producers secure the purchase orders. Second, there needs to be a clearly defined process of co-creation. If no one stakeholder has the answer, then we  create a solution together. Finally, we need to know that none of us are smart enough to figure this out on the first try. It's going to take a shared commitment to repeated iterations to find the most pragmatic, impactful way forward.

Between the EFI and CIERTO, we're currently engaging over 50,000 farmworkers across North America, but in silos. Uptake is slow and sporadic. Year one will see us conducting repeated iterations to test different concepts that will establish the foundation for the Turn-key Ag Scaled Operational Platform. These iterations will include several hundred farmworkers. Based on what we learn, we'll establish our platform and impact  100,000 farmworkers. This means farmworkers will see themselves as proud, essential agricultural professionals with identifed career paths within agriculture. Their employers will value their knowledge and expertise; their farms will benefit. Retailers will recognize the value of this new paradigm, and awardpurchase orders to those growers who participate in this new system.  As we impact 500,000 workers by year ten, we expect to have achieved critical mass, creating even wider spread industry uptake.

IIn the next five years we will have performed a series of iterations that results in the creation of a platform from which we can impact the lives of 500,000 workers in the subsequent five years. We need to show those of us trying to change this industry from our traditional silos that a paradigm shift is not only needed but possible. We need a new systematic  vision and process to achieve that future. 

 Agriculture is a system. If we're going to bring about meaningful change, we need to design to change the system. Professional farmworkers require professional management. Employing professionals requires greater farm income, something only retailers/brands can address. In exchange, professionals can produce a more consistent, higher quality product for retailers. Technology, when properly deployed and regulated, can increase the impact of this system, making agriculture safer, more humane and efficient.  But  our system in more than just production, it's about workers largely residing in rural communities. The welfare of these communities is increasingly intertwined across international borders. The degree to which the WA cherry harvest goes well will directly impact Miahuatlan, Mexico, home to many cherry pickers' families. This is happenstance. We know, based on our work with CIERTO, that we can actually design a system that contemplates the welfare of both communities. 

Our program is not about charity or pity. It's about recognizing the inherent dignity of agricultural work and designing a system that puts that dignity and resilience front and center.

1) Societal fragmentation: In the US, we increasingly lack a shared understanding of the world, and a vision of who we are as  country, much less what we aspire to accomplish

2) The culture of farmwork, where workers engage more as day traders, looking to maximize their return on a day's labor rather than looking towards pursuing a career

3) Existing stakeholders who are too comfortable with the status quo and who will view our disruption as a threat

4) Racism. Too often, those who work in the fields are of a darker skin color than their employers and the majority of the country in which they are working. Racism makes engaging one another as equals very difficult

5) The Market. The drive for short term return undermines the ability to make needed long term investment. Those who cut corners, violate the law, sacrifice food safety regulations produce a lower priced product and end up securing the purchase order from retailers. 

6) Inertia. Disruptive change is both hard and at times scary. Inertia, while unsatisfying and over the long term, undermining, is a comfortable known quality.

7) Fear of failure. The drive for quick, quantitative results can be caustic, setting up a binary pass/failure mentality. 

1) Food unites us as a species. Regardless of what someone may think about farmworkers, we all have to eat. That's the bridge to build upon.

2) We need to align, especially in the early phase of our work, with those workers who aspire to something better and different. Let those who are skeptical or at first resistant witness our eventual success.

3) Develop a proactive communication strategy combined with developing a plan that anticipates possible attacks designed to undermine or sabotage our work

4) Commitment to process and outcomes. Explicitly set boundaries to establish the safe participation of all; document the results of our work. Let impact and increased mutual understanding drive attitudinal change.

5) The Market. Align with those retailers/buyers who are willing to play the medium to long game and willing to put their purchase orders in front of participating growers.

6) Having not only the right organizational stakeholders matters, but literally the right individuals matters even more. If there is not a common understanding that the status quo is untenable, those who find the status quo acceptable will quickly bail. Focus on the risk takers.

7) Design the process to be one of repeated iterations rather than pass/fail. Get a pilot concept out in the field sooner as opposed to later to field test. Get key stakeholders out in the fields to experience the test first hand. Focus on learning and becoming smarter. When we do that together, we build trust and deeper relationships

Through the work I'm leading in the dairy industry, we're currently partnering with Costco, Target, Nestle and Starbucks. On the production side, we're working with DFA (the largest dairy cooperative in the country), Producers Dairy and Aurora Dairy (one of the largest organic dairy producers in the US). The EFI works with Costco, Bon Appetit (subsidiary of the Compass Group) and more than three dozen major growing operations across North America. CIERTO has two grower partners on its board (which I chair). I am in regular contact with a dozen major growers across the United States and Mexico. In Israel, we've met with the Israeli Farmer Federation and the progressive labor federation "Power to the Workers".  Our non-corporate engagement includes leading food safety organizations such as CSPI and CFA and foundations such as Oxfam America and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.  We also have worked closely with government; I led the signing of the first ever Memorandum of Understanding between the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a US labor union.  We work closely with the Mexican Consulate. In Mexico, we have worked closely with the US Embassy and its Consulates across the country.

This is an area that I am still learning about. I know that in the modern industrial age, the principal model for organizing economic activity has been linear value chains running from the farms who supply either directly to the retailers or who supply to “brokers” who supply to retailers who supply to consumers. Platform-Ecosystem organizing offers a new opportunity for value creation but I am yet unsure of how this will unfold for the platform we are contemplating. The data the platform generates can further develop the platform and potentially create value for all contributors

Neither CIERTO or the EFI have the staff or resources to dedicate to this opportunity. As a co-founder and board member of both organizations, I have intimate knowledge of both. This prize will allow me to focus 100% of my efforts in bringing this project to market. The EFI has been in touch with private equity investors about this concept, but they want more specifics. We also see investment opportunities from our corporate partners; Costco has previously invested $2 million to support the growth and expansion of the EFI. As with the investors, they too wanted to see a more developed concept before investing. These sources would serve as needed start-up capital. Our revenue stream, while yet to be determined, would be some variation of fee for service, paid for by our project's customers. They may include farmworkers (for professional development and support), growers (for management, recruitment, workplace design and training) and retailers (to identify those growers interested in building a more resilient supply chain). Clarifying and establishing our business model will be an essential component of our Phase 1 work.

I have not. I have advised my employer of the last 18 years that I will be leaving their employment. I intend to dedicate my time to pursuing how to make this project a reality. 

I am in the beginning phase of making the project reality. I will pursue both foundation support and am exploring possible private sector investment.   

Consultant fees $100,000

travel and/or collaborative software (depending on what happens with the pandemic)  $25,000

Office supplies and overhead $10,000

Partner convenings $15,000

Research $10,000

Material development $10,000

I'm 53 years old and have spent 30 years working side by side with farmworkers to create a more just, equitable agricultural industry. My experience with farmworkers, from sharing a meal on the top of a mountain in Colombia with coffee pickers to watching a novela in Mexico with strawberry pickers fuels my sense of urgency. 

The CORONA 19 virus has revealed just how pressing the need is to redesign our food system. Rural communities and farmworkers are getting the virus in unacceptable levels and paying the price with their health and sometimes lives. Our food system teeters on the brink of collapse.

I know from the successes of CIERTO and the EFI it doesn't have to be like this. This isn't the moment to play it safe. It's time to disrupt, learn and grow; both at the personal level and within food production agriculture. The Elevate Prize will give me this opportunity to jump start this journey.

My career in farmworker unions has provided me with a clear  line of sight on the need. My work and experience in organizational design have shown who needs to participate and the best processes to make the resulting deliberations fruitful. I do not, however, have a business background. So receiving professional support on developing the actual business model would be extremely helpful.

I'm also aware there can be a world of difference between intent and execution. Finding and retaining the right people is critical to close that gap. Support in identifying the right people with the needed values, skills and vision would also be incredibly helpful.

The EFI and CIERTO, while full blown organizations with programmatic expertise under their respective belts, will de facto serve as our pilots. The active participation of Costco (who, again, has expressed support for this venture) will be critical to drive market uptake. We will need courageous growers and workers who will partner with us in the inital iterations.