Worker Co-ops
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no content 818</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">richard hobbs on wolff</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/economic-update-november-1-2019/">https://kpfa.org/episode/economic-update-november-1-2019/</a></div><div>
</div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/time-really-is-money-with-increasingly-popular-cooperative-time-banks/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Time really is money with increasingly popular cooperative time banks</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/valerie-vande-panne/" title="Posts by Valerie Vande Panne" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Valerie Vande Panne</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/independent-media-institute/" title="Posts by Independent Media Institute" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Independent Media Institute</a></font></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jennie Weakley is a time bank enthusiast with Unity in Our Community TimeBank in Southwest Detroit. For nearly 10 years, she’s used time banking to get the windows of her…</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">see also foxconn</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">kpfa upfront loss of agency purpose, worker co-operative</font></a><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;" /><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/amazon-employee-suicide-threats-tied-to-dehumanizing-workplace-conditions-at-warehouses/" rel="bookmark" title="Amazon employee suicide threats tied to ‘dehumanizing’ workplace conditions at warehouses" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">cf</font></span></a><span open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-march-11-2019/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"> https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-march-11-2019/</font></a></span><span open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" font-weight="font-weight" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 6px; padding: 0px; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; line-height: 1.4; display: block;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">lost connections johann hari </font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">j hari</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-our-mental-health-struggles-are-linked-each-others-surprising-ways">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-our-mental-health-struggles-are-linked-each-others-surprising-ways</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=
</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/it-will-take-political-revolution-cure-epidemic-depression">https://www.alternet.org/personal-health/it-will-take-political-revolution-cure-epidemic-depression</a></font></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/capitalism-we-can-do-better-20190305</font></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
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</font></div><div><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/berry-farmers-break-free-from-big-agriculture-2600437192.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.ecowatch.com/berry-farmers-break-free-from-big-agriculture-2600437192.html</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div class="headline-container" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="headline h1" style="margin: 10px; padding: 0px; position: relative; line-height: 31px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berry Farmers Break Free From Big Agriculture</font></h1></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="js-scroll-trigger" data-target="body" data-triggers="render-rebelbar" data-toggle-class="with-floating-shares" data-loaded="true" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /></span></font><div id="utm_campaign" style="margin-top: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body js-update-url" data-elid="2600437192" data-authors="YES! Magazine" data-headline="Berry Farmers Break Free From Big Agriculture" style="margin: 10px; line-height: 24px;"><div class="body-description" style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Lynsi Burton</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For the first time, Ramon Torres maintains control over his livelihood. He chooses what to farm and how to farm it, free from pesticides that harm workers, under working conditions he helps set.</font></p><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The 22 acres of juicy strawberries and blueberries he farms belong to him and three others under Cooperativa Tierra y Libertad ("Land and Liberty Cooperative"), a <b>farm co-op founded in 2013 </b>to meet consumer demand for berries farmed under nonexploitative conditions and worker demand for a fair paycheck and safe working conditions. The co-op prides itself on organic farming and livable wages for its workers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Torres worked at Sakuma Brothers berry farms in Skagit County, Washington, several years ago, he and his fellow farmworkers endured low wages, unpaid breaks, and exposure to pesticides.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A co-worker, Federico Lopez, <a href="https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/sakuma-brothers-berry-boycott/Content?oid=17869474" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">was fired </a>immediately after requesting a raise, and, along the way, the workers learned they weren't paid for rest breaks.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A <a href="https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-18/workers-who-pick-your-summer-berries-are-asking-you-not-buy-them" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">strike organized by Familias Unidas por la Justicia</a>—and a <b>federal class-action <a href="https://law.justia.com/cases/washington/supreme-court/2015/90932-6.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">lawsuit</a></b> resolved in 2015—afforded them more benefits, including the paid rest breaks, and propelled Sakuma Brothers workers to secure a <a href="https://socialistworker.org/2017/06/20/sakuma-workers-win-their-first-contract" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">union contract in 2016 </a>that improved their working conditions and led to farmworkers getting paid a minimum of $12 per hour.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In April, a Washington state <a href="http://www.capitalpress.com/Washington/20180510/washington-piece-rate-pickers-must-be-paid-for-down-time-high-court-rules" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Supreme Court decision </a>determined that piece workers—workers paid by how much produce they harvest—must be paid at an equal rate for any work that doesn't involve direct piece work, such as downtime and travel between fields.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"All the bad things about housing, treatment of workers—everything changed," Torres said through an interpreter.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in the lead-up to the court-ordered changes, Torres and several other workers were starting to think about other solutions. They asked themselves: What if we set the standard for our own working conditions and own the land we work?</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Torres and three others—with the support of food sovereignty and worker solidarity nonprofit Community to Community—formed a cooperative in which members</b> own and live on the land they farm and will, if all goes according to plan, making enough income selling their crops at markets. They worked amid the long hours and demands from family, work, and life.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This summer is the first harvest season for Cooperativa Tierra y Libertad. The co-op now owns and farms berry fields in the rural towns of Sedro-Woolley and Lynden. They're now producing 150 to 200 boxes each week to sell in markets throughout the region and have laid the groundwork to establish a community-supported agriculture subscription service next year.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And it's all organic, which is a primary tenet of the co-op's mission.</font></p><h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inspiration</font></h4><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torres and the three other workers—Pedro Torres, Modesto Hernandez Leal, and Tomas Ramon—began organizing the co-op as part of Ramon Torres's efforts with Familias Unidas por la Justicia, where he was organizing workers to make demands of Sakuma Brothers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They did so with the support of C2C, which trained the workers using a culturally relevant curriculum in how to form a cooperative. While the four worker-owners farm the land and make all decisions, C2C pitches in with administrative work, marketing, and other tasks the owners need support with as the cooperative gets going.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The co-op members all worked at corporate farms before and are doing their own farming for the first time, said Rosalinda Guillén, executive director at C2C. She is also a farmworker organizer who grew up on a Skagit County berry farm. They're training as they're doing the work, she said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torres was forced to change course after the Sakuma Brothers strike; while he helped get his coworker <a href="https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/sakuma-brothers-berry-boycott/Content?oid=17869474" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">reinstated</a>, he was fired.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, using the lessons he learned from his union activism, he sought to gain greater control of his livelihood.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He and the Cooperativa Tierra y Libertad members agreed on their founding principles.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When we came together, we decided what we wanted: working with organics, no pesticides, good wages, and the most important thing was not to have a boss ordering [me] around or telling me what to do," Torres said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Farmworkers often encounter abusive situations, ranging from wage theft to eviction to injury and illness, Guillén said. They're typically left powerless because employers can retaliate against complaints by firing workers, she added.
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>State agencies exercise control over working conditions and pesticide use—and C2C participates in rulemaking processes—but within the parameters of these overarching laws, the co-op sets additional rules about how it raises its crops and treats its workers.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The workers of the co-op have had to overcome barriers.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The time and intellectual power to change from capitalism to cooperativism requires a lot of energy and time," Guillén said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All four co-op founders are currently working other jobs—in corporate agriculture—to support themselves as they get Cooperativa Tierra y Libertad off the ground.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guillén said their aim isn't riches, but a preservation of their heritage as they secure their rights.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"They don't want their kids to leave agriculture. They want their children to grow food the right way," she said. "It's more about leaving a legacy and changing the system than making tons of money."</font></p><h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Organic</font></h4><p style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Among the most effective efforts of the Trump administration is the dismantling of environmental regulations. Last year, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed a ban on <b>chlorpyrifos,</b> an insecticide known to harm children's brains and the nervous system. Just more than a month later, 50 farmworkers in Bakersfield, California, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/05/california-farm-workers-just-got-poisoned-nasty-pesticide-greenlghted-trump/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">were poisoned by chlorpyrifos</a>. Only a month later, 17 workers planting celery starts in the Salinas area <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11681690/2017-monterey-county-pesticide-drift-incident-near-salinas" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">fell ill after nine different pesticides </a>were applied to area fields.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A federal <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article216372085.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">court ordered the EPA ban chlorpyrifos </a>in August, two years after EPA scientists found that the chemical affected the air quality in the largely agricultural California towns of Salinas, Ripon and Shafter.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guillén said if the worker-owners want to see a post-pesticide world, they must put it into action.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's more valuable for us to form a model and example of how farmworkers can grow food without pesticides," Guillén said. "If we don't grow organic ourselves, we can't argue our point."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Farmworkers are the first to be affected by pesticides, and the physical protection they might wear, like gloves, doesn't always help. They still can't remove every trace of pesticides from their bodies, Guillén said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Why do we have to go out in the fields looking like robots?" she said, referring to the protective equipment workers wear in the fields. "We just don't want this stuff in the field. It is better that robots do it because it's killing us."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then there's the damage to the soil, air, water supply, and the pesticides that remain on food.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torres sees symptoms of pesticide irritation among farmworkers: swollen eyes and faces and, once, white spots on a worker's hands.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"As farmworkers, pesticides are harming us," Torres said. "We don't have the option of saying, 'Do or don't apply pesticides.' We just go to work. We have to work at the mercy of whatever company is there."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And to Torres, farming organic isn't a way of growing that belongs to White, wealthy people—it's traditional, and a practice passed down through generations.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We're all used to growing our food without the need of pesticides or chemicals," he said of their ancestral heritage. "We want to follow that tradition to not use pesticides."</font></p><h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vision</font></h4><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torres has fielded compliments on the Cooperativa's produce and sees the product posted on social media, where the union and its workers are tagged. They're set to buy 60 more acres in Lynden in the coming weeks.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The co-op's 10-year vision includes 100 acres, 10 houses, meeting areas, and spaces where the farmworkers can practice their native art, Torres said. Most of the workers are indigenous, often Mixteco or Trique.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They'd also like to foster additional co-ops that will grow other crops, including testing different varieties of corn. If all goes as planned, the corn co-op would sell to a co-op tortilleria—building a "local, solidarity economy," Guillén said.
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, the co-op employs eight workers separate from the worker-owners and pays them $15 an hour. Guillén said the four worker-owners will start making money on their enterprise in about three years.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Torres continues to work other jobs to support his two kids until the union can provide full-time income. His wife also works as a union member.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Right now I try to take advantage of harvest so I can make a little money," he said. "It's a lot of work, it's not easy, but we're moving slowly and advancing."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/berry-farmers-break-free-from-big-agriculture-20180829" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">YES! Magazine</a>.</font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div>