Hanawat Tiensin
- May 20, 2020
- 3 min
Ensuring Food Security in the Era of COVID-19
Experts say the pandemic will unleash a food security crisis not seen since the Great Recession. As we learned during the 2008-09 Great Recession, governments – with the support of financial institutions, the United Nations, and others – can mitigate the risk of global food shortages and high prices. ROME – COVID-19 has been slowly creeping into our communities. As we seek to ensure our families’ health and safety, to many people, food has never seemed so important, both as a
Zoe Willingham and Silva Mathema
- May 20, 2020
- 15 min
Protecting Farmworkers from Coronavirus and Securing the Food Supply
With millions of workers staying at home to aid public health efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, the security of America’s food supply and its supply chains has rarely been more important. At this moment, to the extent that there is a challenge in ensuring America’s grocery stores have enough healthy food on the shelves, it comes not from insufficient natural bounty but instead from the extraordinary burdens that COVID-19 has placed on the many low-wage workers who play
Helena Bottemiller Evich and Liz Crampton
- May 20, 2020
- 12 min
Trump Deems Farmworkers 'Essential' But Not Safety Rules for Them. That Could Threaten the F
Millions of laborers facing coronavirus risk in fields and packinghouses lack workplace protections. The Trump administration has deemed the millions of people who are cutting lettuce, picking cherries, packing peaches and otherwise getting food from farm to table to be “essential workers” but is doing little to keep them healthy during the pandemic. Working closely together, workers cover their faces while packaging produce in South Florida. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO The
Eric Westervelt, NPR.org
- May 20, 2020
- 4 min
As Food Supply Chain Breaks Down, Farm-To-Door CSAs Take Off
Images of some American farmers dumping milk, plowing under crops and tossing perishables amid sagging demand and falling prices during the deadly coronavirus pandemic has made for dramatic TV. But it's not the whole story. "We had a reporter call here and say, 'We want to see some produce rotting in the field and milk going down the drains,' " said Judith Redmond, a longtime farmer in California's Capay Valley, northwest of Sacramento. "And I said, 'Well, actually, that's no
Alice Driver, Opinion cnn.com
- May 20, 2020
- 5 min
What the Arkansas Meat Plant Workers I Met Want You to Know
Many of the workers across the country are working elbow to elbow six days a week, eight hours a day. For them, social distancing in the workplace is but a dream. I've spent the past few months interviewing essential workers in the southern United States, primarily in Arkansas, who are instrumental to feeding this country. They hail from Mexico, El Salvador, Myanmar, the Marshall Islands and beyond. Workers I spoke with, many undocumented, told me of fleeing the depredations
Tony Romm, The Washington Post
- May 6, 2020
- 5 min
Republican-Led States Signal They Could Strip Workers’ Unemployment Benefits if They Don’t Return to
The message to workers is ‘endanger your life or starve,’ critics say (“These states are offering people the choice to endanger your life or starve,” said Damon A. Silvers, the director of policy and special counsel for the AFL-CIO. Iowa, Oklahoma and other states reopening soon amid the coronavirus outbreak are issuing early warnings to their worried workers: Return to your jobs or risk losing unemployment benefits. The threats have been loudest among Republican leaders in r
AFL-CIO.org
- May 6, 2020
- 4 min
Safety First: Working People's Plan for Reopening the Economy the Right Way
Every day, health care workers, transit workers, meatpacking workers, first responders, grocery workers, utility workers, letter carriers, construction workers, doormen, retail workers, child protective service workers, factory workers, solid waste workers, corrections officers, janitors and other workers are being exposed to the coronavirus in U.S. workplaces. Hundreds of thousands of workers have been infected and thousands have died. The failure of federal and state govern
Adam Blumenthal
- May 6, 2020
- 4 min
This Is How President Trump Can Quickly – and Safely – Reopen the Economy
It’s the biggest debate in America today. President Donald Trump and some Southern governors want to reopen the economy as soon as possible. Many others want to proceed more cautiously, preferring people stay home until there’s more certainty around the containment of COVID-19. But this debate – around “reopening the economy” or “staying home” – is misguided. It’s far too simplistic. Trump doesn’t need to decide when to reopen America. He has better options he can pursue imme
William Sokol, VanEck Global
- May 6, 2020
- 7 min
What Does a Green Rebound Look Like?
Policymakers Are Faced with a Once In a Lifetime Opportunity After a very strong year for global green bond issuance in 2019, another record year in 2020 looked inevitable—driven by robust and growing demand for sustainable fixed income investments, a favorable credit environment and regulatory tailwind. However, green bonds are not immune to the unexpected shock the coronavirus has had on global markets. Issuance dropped sharply in March versus the prior year, following stro