The voices of disenfranchised rural people are not being heard at the policy making tables of rural New York. This has become abundantly clear during the years of the Justice for Farmworkers Campaign. The plight of the farmworkers has been repeatedly ignored during discussions about New York labor law and its impact upon farmworkers.

There are a multitude of reasons that the voices of the rural poor are not heard. They live in isolated settings - perhaps they speak the wrong language, or have the wrong skin color. They lack the resources to have significant impact. Those who represent powerful interests control who is at the policy-making table, and what is discussed. For close to three decades, Rural & Migrant Ministry has been committed to ensuring the voice of the rural worker is heard in New York, and to holding up voices that call for rural justice. Here are some of those voices.