The states with the highest farmworker population are California, Texas, Washington, Florida, Oregon, and North Carolina.
2011 Sponsors & Campaigns
The Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP) has been an advocate for migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States since 1971. AFOP’s mission is to improve the quality of life for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families by providing advocacy for the member organizations that serve them. AFOP and its member organizations serve farmworkers in 49 states and Puerto Rico.
AFOP’s Children in the Fields project strives to improve the quality of life of migrant and seasonal farmworker children by advocating for enhanced educational opportunities and the elimination of discriminatory federal child labor laws in agriculture.
Watch AFOP's film 'Migrant Education Programming: Promise for the Future 'Comunidad a Comunidad
Duke Students for Humane Borders is a student-led activist group that works to raise awareness on Duke’s campus and in the surrounding Durham community about the humanitarian and human rights issues involving immigration.
The long-standing mission of the Farmworker Association of Florida is to build power among farmworker and rural low-income communities to respond to and gain control over the social, political, economic, workplace, health, and environmental justice issues that impact their lives.
The Farmworker Association’s guiding vision is a social environment where farmworkers’ contribution, dignity, and worth are acknowledged, appreciated, and respected through economic, social, and environmental justice. This vision includes farmworkers being treated as equals, and not exploited and discriminated against based on race, ethnicity, immigrant status, or socioeconomic status.
Watch the Sowing the Seeds of Justice video
Watch Elvira, A Farmworker
Farmworker Justice uses litigation, administrative and legislative advocacy, training and technical assistance, coalition-building, public education and support for union organizing to empower migrant and seasonal farmworkers to improve their living and working conditions, immigration status, health, occupational safety, and access to justice.
Farmworker Justice is a proud sponsor of Farmworker Awareness Week, working with organizations around the country to bring timely and accurate information to the public on a variety of farmworkers' issues.
Farm Labor Organizing Committee
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (FLOC), is both a social movement and a labor union. Our immediate constituency is migrant workers in the agricultural industry, but we are also involved with immigrant workers, Latinos, our local communities, and national and international coalitions concerned with justice.
The FLOC vision emphasizes human rights as the standard and self-determination as the process for achieving these rights. We struggle for justice for those who have been marginalized and exploited for the benefit of others and we work to change the structures of society to enable workers to have a direct voice in their own conditions.
Check out this video of a Chase protest
Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW) is a grassroots organizing collective seeking to unite migrant farm workers across racial, linguistic, gender and citizenship status while amplifying their voices and collective power throughout rural Canada. We lobby the government, engage in direct action and consciousness building among migrant farm workers, their host and sending communities. J4MW strives for the dignity and respect for the human rights of migrant farm workers and their families.
Watch the video El Contrato
Watch Pilgrimage to Freedom: Breaking the Chains of Indentureship
Mi Gente: Asociación de Estudiantes Latinos
Mi Gente was founded in 1992 as the central Latino/a organization at Duke University. Mi Gente's mission is to provide a sense of community among Latinos/as at Duke as well as to promote awareness and sponsor activities about Latino/a cultural, political, educational, and social issues. It is a forum for individuals to explore the diverse histories, identities, and traditions that make up the Latino/a world.
We strive to serve as a voice and to raise awareness on campus for Latino/a and other multicultural concerns. One of Mi Gente's priorities is to reach out to first year students and provide them with a home and a familia as they make their way through Duke. Mi Gente also strives to develop relations with the Durham Latino/a population through activities such as community service and outreach programs.
Farmworker Ministry Committee of the NC Council of Churches
The North Carolina Council of Churches is a statewide ecumenical organization promoting Christian unity and working towards a more just society. The Council enables denominations, congregations, and people of faith to individually and collectively impact our state on issues such as economic justice and development, human well-being, equality, compassion and peace, following the example and mission of Jesus Christ.
Join the Harvest of Dignity campaign.
NC Council of Churches video: An Overview of Our Work
The National Cesar E. Chavez Blood Drive Challenge is a service learning initiative celebrating Mr. Chavez’s Legacy by promoting Health Education, Health Careers, Civic Engagement and Saving Lives! Student Organizers have the opportunity to coordinate the campaign on their college/university campus having a direct and lasting impact on their local Hispanic/Latino community while representing their school in a national competition. Join our campaign and save a life today! ¡Sí se puede!
National Farm Worker Ministry: an interfaith organization that supports farm workers as they organize for empowerment, justice, and equality.
During Farmworker Awareness Week, NFWM and it’s Youth and Young Adult Network (YAYA) organize numerous events around the country to raise awareness about farm worker organizations, their campaigns and the issues that affect farm workers and their communities. Check out the YAYA Farmworker Awareness Week Site- a MUST See!
YAYA's facebook page | YAYA's myspace page
NC FIELD and Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
“Planting the Future of Agriculture in North Carolina”
Our mission is to create strategies and initiate collaborative actions that will promote justice and equality by increasing access to opportunities for the farm working community.
NC Focus on Increasing Education, Leadership and Dignity (NC FIELD) works to educate, organize community leaders and promote justice in North Carolina’s agricultural worker communities by ending child labor, delivering educational programming, particularly to unaccompanied youth, and promoting food security, housing solutions and other opportunities that enhance quality of life.
Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger and injustice. Together with individuals and local groups in more than 100 countries, Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice. Oxfam’s Decent Work Program is helping meat-processing and farmworkers in the US Southeast secure their rights to collective bargaining, fair compensation, safe working conditions, and freedom from discrimination.
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN)
PCUN is Oregon's union of farmworkers, nursery, and reforestation workers, and Oregon's largest Latino organization.
Student/Farmworker Alliance is a national network of students and youth organizing with farmworkers to eliminate sweatshop conditions and modern-day slavery in the fields. We are currently calling on university food service industry leaders Aramark and Sodexo, as well as leading supermarket chains such as Publix, Stop & Shop, and Kroger, to do their part as major produce purchasers to improve wages and working conditions for tomato pickers in Florida.
Student Labor Action Project
Calling the 10th annual National Student Labor Week of Action, 3/27-4/4. To support organizing activities on your campus we have lots of cool materials including posters, an organizing manual, stickers, whistles, and other fun stuff. Please sign up to be involved in the 10th National Student Labor Week of Action today!
SIGN UP to be part of the movement | Download an ORGANIZING KIT
FLYER | FIND AN ACTION near you!
The Syntiro-Maine High School Equivalency Project's goal is to significantly increase the number of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their immediate families who complete a Maine high school equivalency or diploma program and enter postsecondary education, training programs, upgraded employment, or the military. We are looking for help to recruit eligible participants in Maine who are 17 and older and who have worked seasonally in the agricultural sector for at least 75 days during the last 24 months. For more information visit our website at www.mainehep.org.
Toxic Free NC
Toxic pesticides are over-used in North Carolina and around the world, polluting our food, water and our bodies. Toxic Free NC fights pesticide pollution in North Carolina by advocating for common-sense alternatives that protect our health and environment. We are an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization – North Carolina’s only organization working to put people before pesticides.
Watch the video Pesticides: A Farm Worker Perspective
The University of Florida-Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
Our primary mission is to gather, preserve, and promote living histories of individuals from all walks of life.
University of Minnesota Department of Chicano Studies
Through teaching, research, and community partnerships, the mission of the Department of Chicano Studies at the University of Minnesota is to promote critical understanding of the histories, politics, and cultures of Chicanas/os and Latinas/os of the United States. We are proud to be a sponsor of National Farmworker Awareness Week 2011. The Chicano Studies class, Migrant Farmworkers in the US: Family, Work and Advocacy, taught every spring semester, will play a significant role in this initiative.
United Farm Workers is currently concentrating on immigration reform, protecting farm workers from dying of becoming ill from extreme heat and the Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers – which is Calif. legislation which will expand farm workers right to organize. The UFW is out there in the fields every day continuing Cesar Chavez' legacy to improve the lives of farm workers. You can find out more about our efforts at our multilingual website. We are also supporting grassroots efforts for a national Cesar Chavez holiday and have posted an online petition at our Cesar Chavez resource page located at www.ufw.org/cesarchavez.
Watch the video Cesar Chavez
Witness for Peace (WFP) is a politically independent, grassroots organization of people committed to nonviolence and led by faith and conscience. Our mission is to support peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas by changing U.S. policies and corporate practices that contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Speak out! Take Action in your community this spring and add your voice to the movement for farmworker justice.
