For a self-proclaimed ‘hillbilly hero’ it seems JD Vance doesn’t much care for the little man, if new revelations about one of the vice-presidential candidate’s former ventures are anything to go by.
Before collapsing under the weight of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt, AppHarvest was touted as the herald of a new, tech-savvy era of farming in Eastern Kentucky . Last year, the firm filed for bankruptcy after years of pursuing aggressive growth, in part by prioritizing migrant workers from Central America despite early pledges of employment opportunities for impoverished local communities.
By that point, the company had already come under a slew of complaints over unsafe working conditions, such as employees being provided with poor quality gear and insufficient water breaks while toiling in greenhouses where temperatures are alleged to have regularly soared into triple digits. “It was a nightmare that should never have happened,” as one worker told CNN .
AppHarvest’s failures further tarnishes the image of a working man’s champion that helped catapult Vance to the top of the Republican campaign alongside Donald Trump . “I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands and loved their God, their family, their community and their country with their whole hearts,” Vance told the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month. “But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America’s ruling class in Washington.”