The news article used for the 9/28 news in food assignment is called "Farm Workers, Migrant Population Threatened by Zika" written by Walter Makaula.
The article above talks about how the living conditions of migrant workers living in Florida could be vulnerable to a Zika disease outbreak. Workers tending to the fields for long periods of time are open to an attack by Zika-carrying mosquitoes. While health officials are trying to find ways for the workers to protect themselves, whether it be by wearing clothes to cover up skin or making homemade bug repellents, the biggest reason for this outbreak is that workers can not afford to go to a doctor; either the doctor's appointment would be too pricey or they can't afford to miss a day of work. In Tracie McMillan's The American Way of Eating, the author recalls her experience working on a grape farm for the first time. The workers were paid by the number of crates that their group filled by the end of a nine hour shift. On her first day, her group only managed to fill thirty-nine crates; at $2 a crate, that only left the group with $78 to split between the three of them (27). Bringing $26 home to a family with kids after a full nine hours of working is well below a living wage. These workers can't afford to miss a single shift in the fields, lest leave their family hungry for a day. Also, being migrant workers in a country where they aren't even considered legal citizens, it must be extremely difficult to find a doctor for a price that's within their very constricted budget. Seeing these conditions first hand, including the migrant workers in Food Inc. who were in danger of being arrested and shipped back across the border at any time, has been an eye-opening revelation to what happens behind the scenes of the produce that average consumers buy and consume everyday.
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