My Maddening Quest to Find Out if Blueberries Come From Farms Where Workers Were Harmed

My Maddening Quest to Find Out if Blueberries Come From Farms Where Workers Were HarmedJuly 21, 2026 Over the past year, I’ve reported about crimes against farmworkers who have come to the U.S. legally from Mexico and Central America. I haven’t stopped thinking about how they suffered. Their wages were stolen, guns were pointed in their faces, and one woman I met was held captive, raped and nearly killed.As I wrote those stories, there was something else I couldn’t stop thinking about — something I keep thinking about: Whenever I go to the grocery store, I have no easy way of knowing if the fruits and vegetables I put in my cart are part of the problem I’ve documented.Footage from labor contractor Javier Sanchez Mendoza in 2018 on a blueberry farm. Mendoza was charged in a federal indictme