May 2, 2024

Farmworker Awareness Week increases awareness

Equitable Food Initiative (EFI), a farmworkers rights’ group, successfully wrapped up its fifth year of promoting Farmworker Awareness Week.

Publicity and social engagement throughout the agricultural industry during the week, which was March 25-31, involved politicians, government agencies, schools and businesses, according to a news release.

“While consumers have a general understanding of how their fresh foods are grown, cared for, harvested, packed and shipped, there is often a disconnect in understanding the number of skilled individuals required to keep our grocery stores stocked,” LeAnne Ruzzamenti, EFI’s director of marketing and communications for EFI, said in the release. “Marking Farmworker Awareness Week gives the industry the opportunity to raise awareness and celebrate the efforts of the people and skills behind the scenes producing nutritious food.”

Since 2020, EFI has provided a free communications toolkit to encourage industry members to participate in celebrating the week and has continued to add new tools and resources each year.

The toolkit, available at equitablefood.org/toolkit, is sent to every state agricultural department, national commodity boards and producer organizations in agriculture, asking them to share with their members and producers. This year, the resulting media and social posts spread across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and LinkedIn, garnered thousands of engagements and more than a million impressions.

The use of the toolkit and graphics, ready-to-use talking points and the hashtag #FarmworkerAwarenessWeek produced popular posts inside and outside the agriculture industry from organizations including Stemilt Growers, Superfresh Growers®, NatureSweet and Baloian Farms as well as Blue Ridge Health, the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Workforce Development Board. Popular platforms also used the hashtag to promote related events, including food and clothing drives for farmworkers and their families.

Contributions to Farmworker Awareness Week were unique to each organization that participated, including politicians, government agencies, nonprofits, health organizations and higher education institutions. Delaware Farm Bureau worked with a local morning TV show to highlight agriculture and farmworkers in the First State; the governor of Vermont was all in on a farmworker week proclamation; and Pennsylvania’s first lady and the state’s agriculture department secretary met with farmworkers to thank them for their work.

While Farmworker Awareness Week is only seven days of the year, EFI and its partners are working every day to integrate worker voice and engagement throughout the supply chain, according to the release.

EFI is the capacity-building and certification organization that partners with growers, farmworkers, retailers and consumer groups.