Big-Money Speculators Are Buying Up and Renting Out Farms, and Pricing Real Farmers out of the Market

‘John Steinbeck’s novel “Grapes of Wrath.” Woody Guthrie’s ballad “Deportee.” Edward R. Murrow’s documentary “Harvest of Shame.” Every decade or so, the public is shocked by yet another discovery that migrant farmworkers are being horribly abused by the wealthy masters of the corporate food system. And here we go again.
Last November, the New York Times reported that the workers who grow and harvest the cornucopia of fruit and veggies in the rich fields of California’s Salinas Valley live in a constant crisis of poverty, malnutrition and homelessness. Toiling in America’s salad bowl, they literally cannot afford to eat the fresh, nutritious edibles they produce.’
Read more: Big-Money Speculators Are Buying Up and Renting Out Farms, and Pricing Real Farmers out of the Market