What We Do
The Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) works to transform the existing agricultural system. We seek empowerment, justice and fairness for all who labor from farm to retail. Central to our mission are the principles that all humans deserve respect, the freedom to live with dignity and nurture community, and share responsibility for preserving the earth’s resources for future generations.
Consolidation of power; an economy driven by profit; structural racism that has enabled consolidation of that profit and power in the hands of few via a foundation of strategic exploitation of black, brown, immigrant and native peoples; lack of transparency; and the spread of a cultural of divisiveness are among the root causes of the severe injustices in our food system. These give rise to the advantage of some people over others and invite corruption, while silencing many voices. People are pitted against people, sector against sector. Essential values are discredited and true costs externalized as we ignore the interconnectedness of whole systems. Working people who have the power to change the system remain disunited and in the dark. The very same mechanisms that have led to the need for food justice have given rise as well to the need for racial and environmental justice. The negative impacts of climate change, failure to recycle society’s wastes, and infrastructure deterioration fall most heavily on low income neighborhoods and communities of color while threatening the present and future health of all living beings. By focusing on the need for fair trading in farm products and fair treatment of food workers rooted in empowerment of those most marginalized by the current food system, AJP contributes to shifting the dominant system towards greater fairness and equity. We believe that taking care of and engaging and empowering all people is a necessary precondition for the regeneration of a viable biosphere worth sustaining. Farms and food businesses that function as cohesive, integrated, aware social organisms have a special role to play in ensuring the health of humans, cultures, animals, and our planet. Our work spans the U.S. and Canada in the following main focus areas:
Providing Certification and Technical Assistance Tools to Transform the Food System.
We provide farms and food businesses with technical tools to improve work and trade practices from farm to retail, including extensive toolkits and templates, one-on-one technical assistance, and a stakeholder-driven certification program for high bar social justice standards -- Food Justice Certification (FJC), the gold standard for labor and trade practices in North America. We support and partner with third-party certifiers and worker organizations that carry out the certification and inspection process for the FJC program. Food Justice Certified products can be found on grocery store shelves, farmers markets, CSAs and roadside stands. We maintain a Social Justice Fund, through which five percent of all grants received are set aside, and a portion is used to subsidize certification fees through our cost share program for small family farms and independent retailers and cooperatives that have excellent labor practices, but are experiencing economic hardship.
Raising Awareness of the Need for Transforming the Food System and Models that Can Accomplish Change.
We engage in outreach and education to raise awareness of the disparities and injustice in the food system and the types of approaches needed to realize real change for those marginalized by the current system. Our awareness-raising work is done through social and public media, events and presentations, networking and partnering, contributing comments on other fair market claim programs and associations, providing tools for improving working and trade practices, and promoting the Food Justice Certified (FJC) label in the marketplace. The FJC label helps launch conversations about why such a label is needed and what it means, the existence of inequities and injustice in the food system, the need to address them, and actions that can be taken.
Domestic Fair Trade
Building a Domestic Fair Trade Movement
The members of the Agricultural Justice Project are part of a much larger network of organizations working to build a national movement for domestic fair trade.
Many people today are familiar with International Fair Trade, as it applies to the import of items such as coffee, tea, and cocoa. However, as the movement has grown it has become apparent that many of the challenges facing farmers in developing countries, are facing family farmers and workers here in North America. Big agribusiness continues to thrive while small farms and retailers have gone out of business. Consumers pay more, while farmers and workers receive less. Farmworkers are denied fair wages and basic rights.
This video by the Fair Food Project highlights some of the amazing organizations working to build awareness and change the way our food system works.
We are proud associate members of the Domestic Fair Trade Association (DFTA). To be a resource for both the public and the broader movement in assessing marketplace claims for social justice or fairness, the DFTA developed criteria and reviews fair trade programs. To learn more about the labels you're buying visit the DFTA website today.
DFTA Works to:
- Raise awareness of domestic fair trade issues
- Promote legitimate fair trade and social justice programs
- Support businesses that practice fair trade
- Improve conditions and outcomes for farmers and workers
Agricultural Justice Project
Complaints and Conflict Resolution
AJP is committed to managing the Food Justice Certified program in a fair and transparent manner. We appreciate feedback, and have developed a system to receive and respond to concerns.
To read our Complaints, Conflict Resolution and Appeals Process language in-depth, please click here to download this section from our Policy Manual.
Summary of the Process:
We handle complaints through one process, and conflict resolution and appeals through another process.
Complaints: Concerns raised by anyone about the integrity of Food Justice Certified (FJC) labeled products or entities, the FJC certification process, FJC standards, the behavior or actions of Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) representatives, and/or AJP policies. An example of a complaint would be a complaint of unprofessional behavior on the part of an AJP representative in their capacity as accreditor, standards maintenance, or technical assistance. A customer could also make a complaint, for example, raising questions about whether an FJC product comes from a farm or business that truly adheres to the FJC standards.
Conflict resolution: We are using this term for internal issues between parties that are directly involved in FJC farms and businesses. All grievances reported between parties within the certified supply chain will be treated as internal and subject to conflict resolution. FJC standards require that every certified farm or business must have a conflict resolution procedure outlined for the workplace or farmer/buyer or business-to-business contracts. Examples of an internal conflict resolution would be: a worker’s claim of the employer’s failure to comply with FJC standards, or a farmer’s claim of a buyer’s failure to comply with FJC standards.
Appeals: If either the subject of a complaint or the person submitting a complaint is unsatisfied with the outcome, an appeal can be made to the FJC Board together with the Advisory Council.
Process for Filing a Complaint:
Complaints should be submitted in writing to AJP:
Agricultural Justice Project
P.O. Box 510
4 South Jersey Drive
Glassboro NJ, 08020
or Fax: 856-881-2027, ATTN: AJP Complaints
or Email: info@agriculturaljusticeproject.org
Phone: 856-881-2507
The person writing or submitting the complaint should explain their relationship to the project or the individuals mentioned in the complaint.
Exceptions will be made for those who cannot be reasonably expected to submit a complaint in writing. This could include illiteracy or low levels of literacy, language barriers, or cultural reasons. In those cases AJP will work with its partners to ensure that complaints are documented in a complete manner, translated if necessary, and handled on an equal basis with written complaints.
Steps in the Complaints Process
1. Investigator assigned to assess validity and scope of complaint.
2. Investigator gathers preliminary information to determine validity and scope of complaint and communicates finding to complainant and, if AJP representatives or personnel are involved, to them.
3. If investigator declares complaint is not relevant for further investigation, complainant can appeal within 3 weeks.
4. If found to be relevant for further investigation, investigator gathers additional information to formulate recommendations and submits findings and recommendation to AJP Board.
5. AJP Board reviews findings and recommendations and decides by consensus whether to endorse recommendations or request further investigation. AJP Board informs all relevant parties of this decision.
6. Subject or complainant has the right to appeal.
7. AJP files records.
8. AJP assesses if a change in the quality system is needed and if so, change will be made and posted to website and sent out to clients.
Governance
AJP is stakeholder-driven, and committed to the principles of democratic leadership. We believe that all members of the agricultural system should have a role in developing and guiding our standards and certification program.
Our Stakeholders
The size and membership of the Advisory Council and Standards Committee are determined based on principles of equal representation. AJP has identified key stakeholder groups: Farmers, Workers (food system workers and farmworkers), Retailers, Food Businesses (manufacturers, processors or brand holders), and Indigenous Communities or expertise in a field related to AJP work. The Council and Committee are established with an equal number of representatives from each stakeholder group to the extent possible. Representatives from additional groups, such as civil-society NGOs or certifiers, are also welcome to join. Contact us for more information on becoming a member.
The label is governed by three collaborative committees made up of representatives from different food system stakeholder groups:
- Advisory Council Members
- Standards Committee Members
- Board of Directors
You can read about our governance process in section 7.0 of our Policy Manual. Our bylaws are available upon request to info@agriculturaljusticeproject.org. Click here to find out what we were up to in 2015: Annual Activities Report.
Advisory Council Members
The AJP Advisory Council is active year-round and offers guidance to the Board of Directors and AJP Staff on standards interpretation, policy development, and many other issues. The AC meets by conference call to consider any program or standards changes proposed by the Board and Staff. Members must be able to contribute time to carefully consider revisions and guide the program in annual meetings and in urgent revisions scenarios. The Advisory Council is composed of food system stakeholders and stakeholder advocates, as well as individuals with expertise useful in our work for a just food system.
- Ernesto Bustos, Executive Director, Centro Campesino, MN; Farmworker advocate.
- Tirso Moreno, Farmworkers Association of Florida, FL; Farmworker stakeholder and advocate.
- Keith Talbot, Workers Legal Rights Project, NJ; Worker advocate.
- Jim Cochran, Swanton Berry Farm, CA; Farmer stakeholder.
- Joann Lo, Food Chain Workers Alliance, CA; a coalition of worker-based organizations that advocates for the following stakeholders groups: food chain workers, immigrant workers, women workers, workers of color.
- Rosalinda Guillen, Executive Director, Community to Community Development, WA; a women of color led organization that works to empower under-represented people to bring justice to our food, land and cultural practices and promote community relationships towards self-reliance and human rights for all.
- Denise Aguero, Independent Organic and FJC Inspector, FL; Eater and certification stakeholder.
- Becca Berkey, Northeastern University, MA; Eater and farm labor justice researcher stakeholder.
- Gail Wadsworth, California Institute for Rural Studies, CA; Advocates for marginalized rural residents of California; primarily Latinx farmers and farmworkers; and low wage workers in the food chain.
- Jason Boyce, Nature's Path Foods, BC Canada; Brand stakeholder.
Standards Committee Members
The Standards Committee is convened formally every 5 years for the FJC standards revision process. Committee members are invited to participate based on expertise or experience in a particular area of the food system the AJP standards cover. Members may be called upon on occasion in between 5-year revisions to address urgent standards revision issues.
Current Standards Committee Members for the 2015-2016 Revision Process:
- Rosalinda Guillen, Community to Community, WA; a women of color led organization that works to empower under-represented people to bring justice to our food, land and cultural practices and promote community relationships towards self-reliance and human rights for all.
- Kathy Peters, Abundance Cooperative Market, NY; retail food co-operative and retail employee stakeholder.
- Tirso Moreno, Farmworkers Association of Florida, FL; Farmworker stakeholder and advocate.
- Marion McBride, Canada; Brand and Canadian organic grower stakeholder.
- Rufus Haucke, Keewaydin Farms, WI; farmer stakeholder.
- Nancy Vail, Pie Ranch, CA; farmer stakeholder.
- Linda Halley, Gardens of Eagan, MN; Farmer and farm and food educator stakeholder.
- Jessica Culley, Farmworker Support Committee (CATA), NJ, a migrant-farmworker founded, membership-based organization; Farmworker advocate.
Board of Directors
AJP is governed by a Board of Directors, a collaboration of the four founding non-profits of the Agricultural Justice Project working to create equity and fairness in our food system. These non-profits include El Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas/The Farmworker Support Committee (CATA), Florida Organic Growers (FOG), Northeast Organic Farming Association, and Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI). Our Board Members contribute significant time to carry out Board activities.
Elizabeth Henderson
The Northeast Organic Farming Associationelizabethhenderson13@gmail.com
www.nofa.org
(585) 764-8471
Jessica Culley
Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas / Farmworker Support Committee (CATA)catanj@aol.com
www.cata-farmworkers.org
856-881-2507
Marty Mesh
martymesh@gmail.com
Michael Sligh
Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI-USA)msligh@rafiusa.org
www.rafiusa.org
(919) 542-1396
Nelson Carrasquillo
catanc@aol.com
Nelson Carrasquillo has a master's degree in social work, and was an organizer for the fishermen’s union then Community Coordinator for PRISA, doing organizing work for farmworkers, small farmers, fishermen and urban communities in Puerto Rico. Since 1992, Nelson has been the Executive Director of El Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores (CATA- The Farmworkers’ Support Committee), working with migrant farmworkers located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Delmarva Peninsula, and Puerto Rico. He serves on the boards of the Urban/Rural Mission and the Farmworker Health and Safety Institute and was a member of the USDA Small Farm Commission (1998). In 2007, he was named to Governor Corzine’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Immigration. Currently, Mr. Carrasquillo serves as Board Member of the Agricultural Justice Project.
Jennifer Salinetti
Woven Roots Farmwovenrootsfarm@gmail.com
www.wovenrootsfarm.com/
Press & Newsletter Archives
AJP and Food Justice Certified In the News:
AJP Press Release- November 29, 2018, Soul Fire Farm latest family and community farm to receive Food Justice Certification.
For Immediate Release, November 29, 2018 - From the Agricultural Justice Project
Soul Fire Farm receives Food Justice Certification
The Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) is proud to announce that Soul Fire Farm has become the latest family farm to received Food Justice Certification.
Soul Fire Farm, a small highly diversified farm in Grafton, New York, provides weekly doorstep deliveries of in-season, farm fresh, certified naturally-grown food to hundreds of individuals in the Albany inner city living under food apartheid and targeted by state violence. Soul Fire Farm is committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system.
Upon receiving news of their certification, the Soul Fire Farm team responded:
“Soul Fire Farm proudly sought the Agricultural Justice Project's Food Justice Certification, recognizing that to date, it is the only farm certification that commits to an unequivocal focus on the rights of food system and food chain workers, centers farm worker-led organizations, and was developed primarily by farmworkers and farmers in a participatory stakeholder process. As collaborators in a movement that honors the people whose labor has built the food system in this country, we pursued FJC in recognition of the striking significance of a certification that amplifies farmworkers’ voices while supporting their lives and livelihoods. In a food system founded on stolen land and labor that continues to perpetuate structural racism and injustice, we value FJC's insistence on fair pricing and fair labor practices that challenge food apartheid and the devaluing of the people who steward the land.
At Soul Fire Farm, we go beyond the organic standards and the FJC standards by working to dismantle the racist structures that misguide our food system. Through programs such as the Black-Latinx Farmers Immersion, sliding scale CSA farm share, and youth food justice leadership training, we are part of a network of farms working to foster land stewardship and leadership by Black and Brown people in the food system, reclaim Afro-Indigenous regenerative farming practices, and catalyze the transfer of resources and power from those with food system privilege to those impacted by food apartheid. In our own team, we strive to mirror the healing justice we seek in the world by uplifting radical self-care, community accountability, compassionate communication, distributed leadership, fair compensation, and commitment to personal and professional development. “
AJP’s Food Justice Certification sets a high bar for social justice labeling in the US and Canada. This program is designed for all agricultural production systems, fiber, and cosmetics, as well as food. Candidates must meet rigorous standards that have been negotiated among stakeholders in the food system. The standards (which can apply to farms, buyers, distributors, processors and retailers—every link in the food system) include:
- Fair pricing for farmers
- Fair wages and treatment of workers
- Safe working conditions
- Fair and equitable contracts for farmers and buyers
- Workers’ and farmers’ right to freedom of association and collective bargaining
- Clear conflict resolution policies for all throughout the food chain
- Clean and safe farmworker housing
- Learning contracts for Interns and apprentices
- Protection for children on farms
- Environmental stewardship through organic farm management practices
This achievement by Soul Fire Farm demonstrates the organic farming community’s commitment to improvement for standards in the industry. “This is a rigorous, nationally recognized certification that demonstrates the commitment of this farm to ethical practices, fair pricing and living wages,” says Agricultural Justice Project co-founder and board member Elizabeth Henderson.
Leah Cohen, AJP’s general coordinator, confirms that the farm meets the rigorous AJP standards for respectful treatment of farm employees, living wages, safe working conditions, and commitment to continual improvement. “Soul Fire Farm is a leading example of the ground-swell of grassroots social justice work happening in rural and urban areas across this country to change the food system. The culture of how people are organized, make decisions, collaborate, and advocate at Soul Fire Farm is tightly aligned with AJP’s principle of stakeholder empowerment. This cultural shift will ultimately dismantle the underlying mechanisms of injustice in the food system that result in many bearing a disproportionately large share of the negative impacts and a disproportionately small share of the benefits of our current dominant food system.”
For more information:
Leah Cohen
General Coordinator
Agricultural Justice Project
leah@agriculturaljusticeproject.org
END
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Consumer Reports: Greener Choices - September 2017, Food Justice Certified Evaluation
Vegetable Growers News - May 2017, Program certifies farmers treat their workers right
Huffington Post - May 2017
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Yes! Magazine - April 2017
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Modern Farmer - February 2017
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From Our Fellow Farmer
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Organic Consumers Association – January 2014
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Forbes – May 2012
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Justice Feed Newsletter:
- July 2017
- Final FJC Standards Public Comment Period - July 2017 (Spanish)
- June 2017
- Final FJC Standards Public Comment Period - May 2017 (English)
- April 2017
- End of Year Letter 2016
- November 2016
- August 2016
- June 2016
- December 2015
- September 2015
- June 2015
- March 2015
- January 2015
- November 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
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Agrictultural Justice Project
In 1999, disappointed that the U.S. National
Organic Program’s standards did not address the people involved in organic agriculture, Michael Sligh of the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI – USA), Richard Mandelbaum of Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas/Farmworker Support Committee (CATA),
Oscar Mendieta,
Fundación RENACE,
Bolivia, Elizabeth Henderson of
Peacework Organic Farm and Marty Mesh of Florida Organic Growers and Consumers began a stakeholder process to develop standards for the fair and just treatment of the people involved in organic and sustainable agriculture.
While their experience was in North America, they set out to create standards that could be adapted for use anywhere in the world. They began with a review of existing social standards and then assembled a first draft of what became “Toward Social Justice and Economic Equity in the Food System: A Call for Social Stewardship Standards in Sustainable and Organic Agriculture.”
They circulated this draft to organic farmers and organic farming associations, non-profits, certification programs, eco-labeling experts, and labor and farm labor organizations. CATA also engaged in an internal process through which the organization’s farmworker members provided input to the worker standards. For two years, AJP circulated successive drafts of their standards to stakeholders in the US and abroad and received comments from around the world. To make the document accessible to a wider audience, they arranged for translations into Spanish and French. With each major revision of the document they circulated the new draft to those who had commented on previous drafts, as well as to people new to the project.
From 2002 - 2005, the founders worked with stakeholders around the world from IFOAM Organic Trade Conference in Bangkok, Thailand to meetings with the International Union of Food (IUF) in Montevideo, Uruguay. Ambitious goals and commitments were set by these meetings. One commitment was to further develop strategies to advance the social agenda in organic and sustainable agriculture, and to build cooperation between the organic and fair trade movements - strengthening the voice and participation of indigenous peoples as an urgent theme. At the close of 2005, the AJP team committed to designing a pilot project to test the standards and their practicality in the U.S. marketplace. (Download full history here)
The Original Pilot – Upper Midwest Region
The Agricultural Justice Project team worked for several years to develop a U.S. Pilot project to test its social stewardship standards on the ground. Through outreach and collaboration, the group built relationships with farmers, retailers, non-profits, and farmworker organizations around the county who are interested in developing a model of a just food system. The AJP also convened a national Advisory Council representing a broad array of stakeholders to advise and inform the group’s progress AJP meets with this Advisory Council on an annual basis. During this time, Quality Certification Services (QCS) developed the application and inspection forms, report language, and confidentiality documents necessary for a social justice certification.
The first step in piloting the project was to do informal inspections of farms in four regions of the county. These exploratory audits confirmed that AJP standards are realistic: farmers expressed the ability and desire to meet them.
A “pre-audit” of several of the region’s exemplary farms and co-ops in 2006 revealed outstanding practices, but a lack of the type of documentation that would be required for verification by a certifier.
Over the following winter, the AJP team developed a toolkit of information and resources to help the farms and co-ops document their good practices.
In the spring of 2007, Quality Certification Services (QCS) and the AJP team conducted official pilot certification audits of four farms and two co-ops in Minnesota and Wisconsin, including Bluff Country Co-op, pictured here receiving their initial pilot certification.
The AJP Partners
Project partners Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA, Comité de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas/Farmworker Support Committee, Northeast Organic Farming Association, and Florida Organic Grower and Consumers are leaders in the fields of sustainable agriculture policy, workers’ rights, community-based food systems, and organic certification. Each of the non-profit organizations in this unique partnership is grounded in decades of grassroots change-making and community-organizing.
The AJP Staff and Regional Team Members
Louis Battalen
Connecticut River Valley Corridor Organizerlouis@agriculturaljusticeproject.org
Leah Cohen
General Coordinatorleah@agriculturaljusticeproject.org
Leah Cohen is the General Coordinator for the Agricultural Justice Project. She first became aware of working and living conditions of farm labor within U.S. agriculture in 1995 as an intern driving a mobile dental clinic serving migrant camps in northwest agricultural fields. After traveling abroad as a volunteer coffee picker for a Nicaraguan cooperative and as an ambulance driver for the Nicaraguan non-profit Casa Materna serving high-risk pregnant women from the country-side, she became grounded again in the farm worker conditions in the Southeast U.S. as a moderator of the 1998 University of Florida Sowing Seeds for Change Symposium session on “Where Farmworkers Live.” As a young adult she attempted to support herself on the $2.13/hour tipped worker wage. From 2000-2001 Leah conducted research as a fellow of the World Agroforestry Center on the impact of illness on farming and fishing household livelihoods in rural western Kenya. From 2004 through 2009 she consulted on monitoring and evaluation assignments for USAID Title II food security programs in Africa by Africare, the American Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, as well as serving as managing editor of the Africare Food Security Review. Her experience with the Agricultural Justice Project began in 2004 with development of the verification system for certification as a consultant for Quality Certification Services and continued with development of the certifier training module and workshop that trained the Midwest Organic Services Association, Inc. From 2009 to 2013 she served as the lead on the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SSARE) grant entitled “Improving the Lives of Southern Organic Farmers and Farmworkers.” She has a personal interest in and commitment to working towards justice in society in general and specifically in the areas of racial, economic, gender, sexuality, and education justice. This commitment motivated her to be a co-founder in a local school that aimed to adopt a curriculum rooted in honoring different world cultures, religions, and perspectives; to advocate for, organize, and implement a gender diversity training after school program in her son's middle school, as well as a progressive sex education program as part of the core school curriculum; and has driven her to complete training in transgender advocacy and awareness, dismantling racism and prejudice, and restorative justice.
Danielle Mastrogiovanni
Program Assistantdanielle@agriculturaljusticeproject.org