This article originally appeared in the May 27, 2016 LocalHarvest Newsletter
it is reprinted with permission

Rebecca Thistlethwaite and husband Jim Dunlop run the Tastes Like Chicken Ranch in Los Lomas, California
I need to preface this discussion by pointing out my – and LocalHarvest’s – longstanding commitment to social justice, fair trade, and living wages. Yet, as a re-covering farmer who had a business large enough to have employees, I also understand the invisible math that most people never get to see. In the December newsletter we spoke to some of the challenges that US farmers face when competing with cheaper, imported food. If a retailer or a consumer can get a cheaper organic tomato grown for a 10th of the labor costs as a US organic tomato, they just might do that. Now imagine if those US labor costs were to go up 50%?
[Read more…] about The Fight for Living Wages