"The promise of the Worker-driven Social Responsibility Paradigm to protect workers in the age of climate change,"

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The dangers of agricultural work go far beyond the complications of working long hours under an ever-warmer sun or performing rapid and repetitive tasks with heavy buckets of produce. Farmworkers often contend with exposure to heat stress, lightning, pesticides, field truck accidents and unsafe transport, not to mention recruitment fees and other illegal charges leading to debt peonage, abusive and violent labor contractors, sexual harassment and assault, as well as sub-standard, overcrowded housing...

The risks posed by ever-rising temperatures have become increasingly dangerous – and even deadly — for outdoor workers. According to the National Institute of Health, farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die of heat-related issues than workers in other industries... To fill the void, the Fair Food Program and its participating growers came together to create and implement life-saving measures...

The Fair Food Program always had best-in-class guarantees of access to shade, clean water and elective rest breaks. But in response to this growing threat – and in consultation with the Fair Food Standards Council (the third-party monitor that enforces the Fair Food Program Code of Conduct on Participating Farms), and Participating Growers on the FFP’s Working Group (the collaborative body that provides essential feedback on emerging issues necessary to develop practical policies designed to remedy those issues) – the FFP studied the latest science, considered the logistical challenges of the agricultural workplace, and set forth enforceable standards requiring a comprehensive plan for heat stress prevention from each farm, mandatory rest breaks every two hours; comprehensive, trilingual training for workers and supervisors alike on the symptoms of heat stress and what to do when workers display or complain of those symptoms; a buddy system for workers on Fair Food farms and emergency response protocols, on all Fair Food Program farms...