The spotlight shines on the Fair Food Standards Council in must-read piece in Sarasota Magazine! photos: Sarasota Magazine Beau McHan, Harvest Manager, Pacific Tomato Growers on the FFSC auditors: “They’re extremely thorough.  Other auditors or inspectors might just poke their heads in, but these guys talk to pretty much every worker. Then they check their records with our office.” In a must-read, well-written, wide-ranging article published in this month’s issue of Sarasota Magazine, entitled “A Sarasota Organization Brings Hope and Justice to Florida’s Tomato Fields,” freelance journalist Philippe Diederich takes a close look at the Fair Food Standards Council, the third party monitoring body for the Fair Food Program, and comes away impressed. The article begins with a compelling depiction of the problems that had faced farmworkers in Florida’s tomato fields before the Fair Food Program: Ten years ago, at the age of 22, Julia de la Cruz left her home and family in the mountains of Guerrero, one of Mexico’s poorest states. She hoped to make enough money working in the tomato fields of Southwest Florida to continue her studies and perhaps one day become a doctor. Instead she found herself trapped in a world of poverty and fear, where swaggering bosses bullied and abused the workers they employed. “I’ve seen crew leaders keep workers’ paychecks. There was a lot of robbery,” she says. Some beat the workers and a few even held them captive. Women, especially, suffered at the hands of the leaders, who would harass them and sometimes demand sexual favors in exchange for giving them easier jobs. [...] [...] It goes on to tell the story of the Campaign for Fair Food and how the success of that campaign gave birth in 2010 to the Fair Food Program and the Fair Food Standards Council, interviewing harvesting supervisors from Pacific Tomato Growers, the first company to sign a Fair Food agreement with the CIW, for their impressions of the Program and the FFSC... Don't miss more on this excellent article out of Sarasota Magazine over at the CIW website!