Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

Book cover for Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain
Book cover for Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain
Image for variant 9780520391604
Image for variant 9780520391611
Book cover for Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain
Book cover for Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain
Image for variant 9780520391604
Image for variant 9780520391611

Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain

Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

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Description

Examining the essential role--and exploitation--of frontline workers across the food chain.

Consumers are demanding a healthier and more sustainable food system. Yet labor is rarely part of the discussion. In Will Work for Food, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Teresa M. Mares chronicle labor across the food chain, connecting the entire food system--from fields to stores, restaurants, home kitchens, and even garbage dumps.

Using a political economy framework, the authors argue that improving labor standards and building solidarity among frontline workers across sectors is necessary for creating a more just food system. What would it take, they ask, to move toward a food system that is devoid of human exploitation? Combining insights from food systems and labor justice scholarship with actionable recommendations for policy makers, the book is a call to action for labor activists, food studies students and scholars, and anyone interested in food justice.

About the Author

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is Associate Professor of Geography and the Environment at Syracuse University. She is the author of The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability.

Teresa M. Mares is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Affiliated Faculty of Food Systems at the University of Vermont. She is the author of Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont.

Critical Reviews

"Will Work for Food . . . masterfully pulls together many threads of the existing scholarship on food workers with an accessible political-economy analysis. Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Teresa Mares help readers understand how inequality is reproduced for workers all along the food chain and how they have organized to challenge that inequality."

--Margaret Gray "Agriculture and Human Values"

"Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Teresa M. Mares' latest book Will Work for Food is a clearly written, and clear-eyed analysis of labor in the food system. . . . This book is an indispensable resource for food systems scholars, advocates, and policy makers seeking to improve conditions for workers across the food chain."

--Kristin Reynolds "Agriculture and Human Values"

"Will Work for Food is at once an affirmation of the workers who make up the food system and an indictment of the forces that undermine the essential value of those who keep society fed."

--Joshua Sbicca "Agriculture and Human Values"

Publishing Information

Publisher: University of California Press
Pub date: 2025-09-23
Length: 318 pages

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