Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, associate professor of geography and the environment, discusses her co-authored book, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain (University of California Press, 2025), on Vermont Public's “Vermont Edition.”

“So many small farmers across Vermont and New York and elsewhere, are competing in a really unequal, unfair system. You have this structure where the vast majority of the food dollar—the money we pay for the food—is not going to the farm, the farm level at all. So small-scale farmers are really struggling today, not just the workers but the farmers and the farm owners,” says Minkoff-Zern.

“The food system perspective is really important here. It's not just about how do they pay for labor costs and compete, but why do we have this system where so little of the money is going to farmers. And why is so much of the money going to these large-scale food processors and retail companies and large-scale food restaurant chains. ...The unequalness of this system is really important to recognize,” she says.

Listen to the full interview via the Vermont Public website, beginning at 15:52.