The Politics of Produce · Episode 17 of 17 · 23 min
The Price on the Sticker: Capital, Labor, and Democracy
Sixteen crops told one story, and the finale pulls the threads together. It names where power sits now, in the seed patent, the subsidy, the visa, and consolidated firms, and the counterweights of the boycott, the union, the co-op, and the vote. The host closes in his own voice, and the grocery bill remains a kind of ballot.
Who's who
- Cesar Chavez+3 more episodesUFW co-founder among the series' organizers
- Dolores Huerta+3 more episodesUFW co-founder among the series' organizers
- Larry Itliong+2 more episodesFilipino organizer of the Delano grape strike
Where it happens
- Boston, Massachusetts+11 more episodes1773 tea protest that opens the series
- Delano, California+2 more episodes1965 grape strike and boycott
- Immokalee, Florida+1 more episodehome of the Fair Food Program
- El Salvador+3 more episodessite of the 1932 La Matanza massacre
Timeline
- 1773a tax on tea turns a beverage into a revolution
- 1932La Matanza follows a peasant uprising in El Salvador
- 1965Delano grape strike begins
- 1975California grants farmworkers the right to organize
- 1994NAFTA takes effect
- 2011Fair Food Program launches in Florida
Still debated
Whether consolidation in seeds, trading, packing, and retail is inevitable or reversible is argued, with the series leaning toward policy choice. Whether subsidies and tariffs help or hurt is also left open.
