Lately we've been paying more attention to where our food comes from, extolling the virtues of organic and local, but what's often left out of the discussion is who is growing our food.  And while getting to know your farmer at the market is an important part of creating a sustainable food system, we also need to keep in mind the 2.5 million farm workers in the U.S. that receive wages below the poverty line and often suffer brutally harsh conditions in order to bring us much of the food that we eat.   

The multimedia project "Fair Food: Field To Table" aims to help remedy this situation by letting farm workers tell their own stories. The project highlights the efforts of fair labor advocates and producers who are helping to create more socially just conditions for farm workers. 

Created by photographer and writer Rick Nahmias and the California Institute for Rural Studies, the three part series offers a startling and upsetting glimpse behind the scenes of our food system, where farm workers are often forced to live in inhospitable living quarters with unsafe water and experience slavery-like conditions in the field. 

The second part of the series offers rays of hope from the farmers at a variety of farms across the country who are committed to providing safe working conditions, comfortable living conditions, and in some cases health insurance.  They also discuss how improving conditions and advocating for human rights ultimately improves farm productivity, which should grab the attention of producers who may have been too focused on the bottom line only.  The third portion introduces us to the advocates and organizations working to establish safe and fair conditions for farm workers and developing networks across the country to create a more socially just system.