The Harvest / La Cosecha

More than 400,000 children work in American fields to harvest the food we all eat.

Children working in agriculture endure lives of extreme poverty

• The average farmworker family makes less than $17,500 a year, well below the poverty level for a family of four.
• Poverty among farmworkers is two times that of workers in other occupations
• Farmworkers can be paid hourly, daily, by the piece or receive a salary, but they are always legally exempt from receiving overtime and often from receiving even minimum wage.
• Families often cannot afford childcare and so have no choice but to bring their children out into the fields.
• Increasing the incomes of migrant farmworkers by 40% would add just $15 to what the average US household spends every year on fruits and vegetables, according to a researcher at University of California Davis.

Source:

http://theharvestfilm.com/facts

The Harvest / La Cosecha will be screened on April 20, 2013 at Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Michigan as part of a Social Justice Film Series sponsored by Pilgrim, St. Augustine Episcopal-Benton Harbor, Berrien Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, 1st Presbyterian Benton Harbor, and the St. Joseph Buddhist Sangha.


Eva Longoria on child migrant farmworkers - The Harvest/La Cosecha from Shine Global on Vimeo.