Movement Spreads Across States and Engages Schools, Governments
WASHINGTON – Equitable Food Initiative, the capacity-building and certification organization that partners with growers, farmworkers, retailers and consumer groups, wrapped up its fifth year of promoting Farmworker Awareness Week. Publicity and social engagement throughout the agricultural industry involved politicians, government agencies, schools and businesses.
LeAnne Ruzzamenti, director of marketing and communications for EFI, remarked, “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.” Ruzzamenti continued, “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, garnering 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 like Northeast Dairy Producers Association, Blue Ridge Health, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, California Workforce Development Board and produce companies like Stemilt Growers, Superfresh Growers®, NatureSweet and Baloian Farms, to name just a few. 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 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. To learn more about EFI’s assessment, training and organizational development programs visit equitablefood.org.
About EFI
Equitable Food Initiative is a capacity-building and certification nonprofit that works to improve the lives of farmworkers and drive business performance by integrating worker voice and engagement throughout the supply chain. As a multistakeholder organization, EFI brings together growers, farmworkers, retailers and consumers to create assessment, training and organizational development programs that support continuous improvement and address the industry’s most pressing problems. For more information about Equitable Food Initiative, visit equitablefood.org.
