How 'Bout Them Tomatoes?

Who is picking your tomatoes? And how much is he or she getting paid for it?

That is what the folks at Sojourners would like you to consider. Soujourners, whose mission is to "articulate the biblical call to social justice," recently issued a call for its members to let McDonald's know that its customers are paying attention to how tomatoes get from Flordia fields and into their Big Macs.

According to an e-mail sent by Soujourners, McDonald's has refused to play ball with a farm workers organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, "CIW." The CIW seeks higher wages and a code of humane conduct for its farm worker members.

The CIW reached an agreement last year with Yum Brands (Taco Bell). See Yum Brands' "Supplier Code of Conduct" and its Supplemental Policy Statement for Florida Tomato Growers.

Consumers pressuring industry to improve working conditions, welcome as it is, is nothing new (think Kathie Lee Gifford's sweatshop fiasco). But could this renewed attention to treatment of farm workers, coupled with fast food outlets advertising for example, "natural chicken" (anyone else seen Chipotle's billboards advertising "natural chicken"?) signify a growing attention to how the food we eat gets from field to mouth? If so, what is that attention going to mean for agriculture?