On February 9, 2012—after a lengthy campaign of protests and letter-writing—grocery chain Trader Joe’s and The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) signed a fair food agreement that supports the fair pay and working conditions for tomato growers in Florida.
The CIW is a community-based organization founded in 1993 by farmeworkers who wanted to organize and fight to end their brutal working conditions. Trader Joe’s is one of many food industry giants whom they have persuaded to join the Fair Food Program.
The list includes restaurant chains such as Taco Bell, McDonald’s and food service companies such as Bon Appetit Management Co. and Compass Group. Trader Joe’s joins Whole Foods as the only two groceries to sign the agreement.
Danielle Nierenberg, an expert on livestock and sustainability, currently serves as Project Director of State of World 2011 for the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington, DC-based environmental think tank. Her knowledge of factory farming and its global spread and sustainable agriculture has been cited widely in the New York Times Magazine, the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and
other publications.
Danielle worked for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. She is currently traveling across Africa looking at innovations that are working to alleviate hunger and poverty and blogging everyday at Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet. She has a regular column with the Mail & Guardian, the Kansas City Star, and the Huffington Post and her writing was been featured in newspapers across Africa including the Cape Town Argus, the Zambia Daily Mail, Coast Week (Kenya), and other African publications. She holds an M.S. in agriculture, food, and environment from Tufts University and a B.A. in environmental policy from Monmouth College.
