Finalist: Los Angeles Times, by Richard Marosi and Don Bartletti

To the Judges:

 

Great journalism makes readers confront what they might prefer to ignore. The series you are about to read deserves that description, and it was inspired by two simple questions about the bounty of Mexican produce on display in American supermarkets: Who picks these fruits and vegetables? And what are their lives like?

 

The search for answers lasted 18 months and took Los Angeles Times reporter Richard Marosi and photographer Don Bartletti across Mexico, from coastal farms to mountain villages and back again. The resulting four-part series, “Product of Mexico,” shook the international produce industry and stirred the conscience of thousands of readers.

 

Among the stark findings:

 

At the giant export farms that supply U.S. grocery and restaurant chains, migrant laborers live in a kind of servitude in squalid camps, trapped by guards, barbed-wire fences and the cynical (and illegal) practice of withholding wages until the end of the harvest.

 

By day, the laborers work in immaculate greenhouses, where hovering bosses make sure they scrub their hands and trim their fingernails to avoid blemishing the precious merchandise.

 

At night, they return to bleak labor compounds where they live in tin sheds, often without beds or clean water, packed eight to a room, dodging scorpions and rats.

 

Many of the laborers — indigenous people from the poorest corners of Mexico — go deep in debt to company stores that are their only source of staples. It’s common for workers to head home at the end of the picking season poorer than when they arrived.

 

At hundreds of small and medium-sized farms, children work the fields, and produce they pick makes its way to U.S. suppliers.

 

The reporting that brought these facts to light was difficult and dangerous. Marosi received a death threat after pestering court officials for details on criminal charges against an abusive grower. Bartletti was followed by cartel enforcers suspicious of his presence in the violence-ridden state of Sinaloa.

 

Immediately after the series was published, produce industry officials on both sides of the border announced an initiative to improve conditions for workers at Mexican farms.

 

Readers responded by the hundreds — with remorse, outrage and calls for action. “My heart aches for these people who are slaves so that we can have a cheap tomato. My supermarket will be hearing from me,” one reader emailed Marosi. “I am still reeling,” wrote another. “I will be looking at those stickers on my produce from now on.”

 

Some readers contacted grocery chains directly to demand answers. The Sprouts chain responded by promising a review of its produce purchasing and saying it “will not tolerate any mistreatment or exploitation” of Mexican laborers.

 

In Mexico, the series provoked public soul-searching and spirited commentary. Alejandro González Iñarritu, the celebrated director of “Babel,” “Birdman” and other films, told a  nationwide radio audience that The Times had exposed “exploitation of human beings at an inexplicable level for the 21st century, in our own country.”

 

Many hailed a notable achievement of the reporting: Marosi mined government and industry sources to trace the flow of fruit and vegetables from specific farms to the produce aisles and restaurant tables of iconic American companies: Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Safeway, Olive Garden.

 

Jim Prevor, a leading produce industry analyst, called Marosi’s careful mapping of the produce pipeline “a game-changer.” He wrote: “It is telling retailers from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart that you own your supply chain and you will be held responsible for all that occurs within it.”

 

Complementing the stories were powerful photos and videos of farm workers — bent over in the fields, clinging precariously to overloaded pickup trucks, bathing in fetid irrigation canals. (We invite you to view the online presentation at WWW.LATIMES.COM/PRODUCT-OF-MEXICO). The series was published in Spanish by The Times’ sister paper, Hoy.

 

Marosi and Bartletti, both deeply knowledgeable about Mexico, traveled across nine states and visited 30 farm labor compounds — a closed world seldom penetrated by journalists. They interviewed hundreds of field hands, working hurriedly to collect as much information as possible before their inevitable expulsion by camp guards.

 

In recommending the series in its “What We’re Reading” newsletter, the New York Times said: “We often hear about the treatment of the chickens, cows, pigs and other animals that become a part of our meals. But rarely is the careful treatment given to the workers whose livelihoods depend on the farms.”

 

For courageous reporting that awakened readers to the hardships endured by Mexican farm workers, we are proud to nominate “Product of Mexico” for your consideration.

 

Sincerely,

Davan Maharaj