When J.D. Vance moved back to Ohio from California in 2016, He founded a “non-profit organization.” It aimed to tackle Appalachia’s drug problems and chronic unemployment. Ohio Renewal aimed to “make it easier for underprivileged kids to achieve their dreams.” But the nonprofit closed down last year. Two years later Other than paying a political consultant to help Vance run for the Senate, he has no other notable accomplishments.
That wasn’t the only big failure in the area where Vance grew up: high-tech agricultural start-ups. App HarvestVance served as an early investor, board member and spokesperson.
As Grist As reported in 2023, AppHarvest promised to tackle the same problems that Vance’s now-closed nonprofit failed to address. It promised high pay, big bonuses, and opportunities for advancement. Employees would receive 100% employer-paid healthcare, stock options, and boxes of fresh vegetables to take home. People formerly incarcerated for opioid addiction-related issues were also welcome.
That was the promise. What AppHarvest delivered was “hell on earth.”
As Capital and main As reported in July, Vance has made a long journey from green energy investor to fossil fuel advocate during his transition from California banker to Donald Trump’s running mate, including a policy shift on providing protections for coal-fired power plants.
But AppHarvest really seemed like the best of both worlds to Vance. West Virginia Public Broadcasting As reported in February, the idea was to build 18 giant greenhouses to grow vegetables on an industrial scale and “help replace the declining coal industry. Local workers would have a chance at high-paying jobs with generous bonuses, while the greenhouses would be primarily powered by local power plants that still burn coal.
AppHarvest is “green” in the sense that it produces vegetables, but it doesn’t compete directly with coal, instead using it as a source of electricity — a win-win, so long as we all agree to continue ignoring the climate crisis.
With the support of Vance Nariya Ventures Working with Vance and other investment firms, AppHarvest was able to raise a staggering $800 million in funding before it had even built its first greenhouse. By 2021, Vance had Fox Business To support AppHarvest’s Wall Street debut, Fox talked about how the company uses recycled rainwater for its crops, eschews pesticides, and has Martha Stewart on its board of directors. Vance complained that the average supermarket tomato is grown “south of the border” by “people who are living underprivileged lives.”
When asked what makes AppHarvest different from other agricultural startups, Vance boasted that while others drive old cars, “we drive Ferraris,” and that for this incredible company, “the possibilities are endless.”
but, CNN The conditions workers faced when they first stepped foot inside AppHarvest’s first greenhouse were reportedly unbelievable. One worker, Anthony Morgan, reported that temperatures in the greenhouse regularly reached 128 degrees Fahrenheit. “Several days a week, we would see ambulances coming and people being put on stretchers and taken to the hospital,” Morgan told CNN. “It was a nightmare that should never have happened.”
Another employee, Shelby Hester, told CNN that she had to bring her own N95 mask into the hot and humid warehouse — not for coronavirus protection, but because she was feeling sick from “a lot of mold and nasty stuff in the warehouse.”
According to GristIn the 1990s, heat indexes inside the greenhouses could reach 140 to 150 degrees. One company employee said AppHarvest was sold to the community as a “beautiful dream story” but in reality it was a “monstrous nightmare.” Another employee reported how the company hid all of the Spanish-speaking “contract workers” before Sen. Mitch McConnell’s tour of the greenhouses.
Just two years after Vance promoted the company’s stock on Fox, AppHarvest went bankrupt, leaving it with hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Rather than helping the Kentuckians that Vance vowed to help, AppHarvest created a “horrific” experience with poor safety and brutal working conditions, with workers even denied regular water breaks in the heat.
Vance’s Book‘s “Hillbilly Elegy” expresses his disdain for the people in the community he grew up in. His fake non-profit organization and failed, abusive company show that his attitude toward “hillbillies” hasn’t changed.
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