Mexico and Wal-Mart Launch Initiative to Improve Lives of Farmworkers Richard Marosi - The Los Angeles Times
go to original February 13, 2015

Product of Mexico: Behind the Series - LATimes reporter Richard Marosi and photojournalist Don Bartletti explain what it took to get access to places that have long escaped outside scrutiny. (Los Angeles Times)

The Mexican government and Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, have announced steps to improve the lives of the nation's farmworkers, two months after a Los Angeles Times investigation detailed labor abuses at Mexican agribusinesses that supply major U.S. supermarket chains and restaurants.

Mexico's secretary of agriculture, Enrique Martinez y Martinez, announced the creation this week of a "historic" alliance of produce industry groups that will focus on enforcing wage laws and improving housing, schools and healthcare for the more than 1 million laborers at export farms.

The group represents growers and distributors that handle 90% of Mexico's produce exports to the United States, which have tripled over the last decade and now exceed $7.5 billion a year.

Separately, Wal-Mart said it is taking action to ensure that workers are treated with "respect and dignity," reminding its in-house buyers that they should buy produce only from farms that meet the company's standards for decent treatment of workers.

Wal-Mart also said it will ask outside suppliers to certify that they have visited "any new facility they plan to use for Wal-Mart production" and that the facilities meet company standards.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

View the entire Product of Mexico series at The Los Angeles Times:

Part 1: Farm exports to the U.S. from Mexico have tripled to $7.6 billion in the last decade, enriching agribusinesses, distributors and retailers. But for thousands of farm laborers south of the border, the boom is a story of exploitation and extreme hardship.

Part 2: A raid exposes brutal conditions at Bioparques, one of Mexico's biggest tomato exporters, which was a Wal-Mart supplier. But the effort to hold the grower accountable is looking more like a tale of impunity.

Part 3: The company store is supposed to be a lifeline for migrant farm laborers. But inflated prices drive people deep into debt. Many go home penniless, obliged to work off their debts at the next harvest.

Part 4: About 100,000 children under 14 pick crops for pay at small- and mid-size farms across Mexico, where child labor is illegal. Some of the produce they harvest reaches American consumers, helping to power an export boom.

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