A strange bedfellows campaign to change the sugar industry

For two years we have helped lead an unusual coalition of business, community, environmental, religious and social justice organizations in a long-shot effort to end sugarcane burning and reform America's hidebound sugar industry.

The No Big Sugar campaign is putting a spotlight on the misdeeds of this industry, which is as politically shrewd as it is arcane. These misdeeds offend stakeholders from the free-market right to the social justice left, plus a range of American industries in between—and that's the main source of the coalition's strength. 

The most troubling misdeed by Big Sugar is forced labor at a Dominican Republic plantation, which is American-owned and a beneficiary of American taxpayer support through the federal farm bill. Investigative reporters with Mother Jones broke the story last month of a federal investigation into this plantation—an investigation that could set a precedent for holding companies accountable for labor exploitation in their supply chains.

It's a big moment in a campaign that is scrappy, persistent and bipartisan. A model, perhaps, for other ambitious long-term policy endeavors.