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In July 2010, a now familiar ritual unfolded in federal court. For the eighth time since 1997, officials unsealed an indictment for forced labor in Florida's fields. These cases have involved well over 1,000 workers harvesting tomatoes, oranges, and other crops for Florida's multi-billion dollar fruit and vegetable industry.

Modern-day agricultural slavery is the most extreme abuse on a spectrum of human rights violations that includes sub-poverty wages, no right to organize, and inhumane living conditions.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a Florida-based farmworker organization, trains law enforcement to investigate, uncover and prosecute existing slavery operations. The CIW also partners with consumers nationwide to win support for farm labor reforms from the retail food industry. These major corporate produce buyers must leverage their market influence to clean up slavery and other labor abuses in their supply chains once and for all.

No other factor is as crucial to human health and food productivity as the supply of clean water. On August 30th, 2010, the UN General Assembly unanimously declared the right to clean, safe drinking water a Universal Human Right. The U.S. and other industrialized countries abstained from the vote.

There are no borders on the mounting global water crisis. Here in the United States, there are hundreds of struggles to keep water clean, affordable, and in the public trust. An estimated 40,000 citizens of Detroit do not have access to water because of inability to pay their water bill. And the Safe Water Drinking Act, which regulates our drinking water from 90 chemicals, must be strengthened to protect us from even more toxins.

A national campus tour called "A Drop of Life" is bringing attention to the gravity of this crisis. The aim of "A Drop of Life" is to use wildly imaginative film and web-based media to engage America’s youth to the water crisis, and to empower new activists with water rights information, tools for action and strategic partnerships. Every drop makes a difference. www.adropoflife.tv.

It seems to be a paradox: One in four U.S. children struggle with hunger, while one in three is obese or overweight. Yet the root cause is the same: lack of access to healthy food. Give children nourishing food in the cafeteria; nutrition education in the classroom; and hands-on learning through school gardens; and a lifetime of healthy eating can take root.

Enter FoodCorps.

An AmeriCorps Farm to School and school garden program, FoodCorps members will work in school districts suffering disproportionate rates of childhood obesity. The program will serve vulnerable children, improving access to healthy, affordable school meals, while also serving its AmeriCorps members by training them for careers in food and agriculture. Serving your country will take on meaning beyond fighting on foreign soil. It can also mean farming American soil as a food soldier on the front line in the war against obesity. www.food-corps.org

Growing up in Detroit 50 years ago, most neighborhoods had a corner store, a grocery store and backyard gardens within walking distance of home. All these options provided healthy, wholesome, affordable food.

Today, with too many corner stores and too few grocery stores, there’s little affordable, healthy food. Good food is scarce, and not within walking distance. This is not unique to Detroit. The landscape is the same in many urban centers.

Everyone has a right to healthy, affordable food in their community. Just as a plant thrives in rich soil, a community thrives when people have access to healthy foods. To make this possible requires active planning. Large grocery stores are part of the solution, as are farmers markets, urban gardens, and community participation in creating acceptable store inventory in corner stores. Good access to good food is good public health.