Agricultural Law

Toward New Models for the Scale and Practice of Agriculture, No. 4

2018-05-09T08:46:00.003-04:00

Our first, second, and third posts in this series are, respectively, here, here, and here.

“Agribusiness lab breeds its few poultry lineages at the level of grandparent stock before shipping out the product to clientele around the world. The practice in effect removes natural selection as a self-correcting (and free) ecological service. Any culling upon an outbreak or by farmers in reaction to an outbreak has no bearing on the development of immune resistance to the pathogens identified, as these birds, broilers and layers alike, are unable to evolve in response.

In other words, the failure to accumulate natural resistance to circulating pathogens is built into the industrial model before a single outbreak occurs. There exists no room for real-time, ecologically responsive, and self-organized immune resistance.

From a world away, human breeders and vaccines must somehow track microscopic molecular trajectories across dynamic mixes of myriad local pathogen variants, a Sisyphean task. It’s a system that appears able to repel pathogens only under the kind of biosecurity and biocontainment that often can’t be implemented in developing countries and even in some developed countries. No ecologically selected resistance, surrounded by a fence. The image of a broken arm, pale and mushy in a cast, comes to mind. Or perhaps more appropriately, a pale mushy wing.

Setting aside barn architecture, reifying capitalism’s angry fight against nature, and the resulting effect on flavor and nutritional fitness of the food produced, Fortress Filière should be subjected to an additional query. Does it even work?

In increasing the rate of livestock turnover, blocking entry by low-pathogenic strains, and restricting selection to grandparent stock, intensive farming is forced to increase the precision of its biosecurity efforts if only in order to keep deadlier pathogen variants from emerging in a context of no or little new natural host resistance.

We can ask of there are combinations of harvesting rate and finishing time selecting for virulence and/or transmissibility that supersede the precision of which the industry is capable or is willing to pay for. At what point does the nature of the problem supersede the margins dedicated to its solution?

The last is perhaps a silly question, as how could we possible assume companies are responsible for the dangers that originate on their property? Sarcasm aside, it offers an explanation for the lengths to which agribusiness goes to externalize the integral environmental, social, and health costs of their operations to any and every passerby—governments, consumers, workers, livestock, and the environment. Agribusiness, some of the largest companies in the world, can’t afford them otherwise.” — Rob Wallace, 21 June 2011, in Big Farms Make Big Flu (2016): 222-223.

Toward New Models for the Scale and Practice of Agriculture, No. 3

2018-04-10T09:34:00.000-04:00

Our first and second posts in this series are, respectively, here and here.

“The logistics of a just, equitable, and healthy agricultural landscape here in the United States would remain a problem if Michael Pollan himself, Wendell Berry, or better yet Fred Magdoff were appointed Secretary of Agriculture. Decades-long efforts pealing back agribusiness both as paradigm and infrastructure, however successful, would require a parallel program. With what would we replace the present landscape?

As a black hole about its horizon, a poverty in imagination orbits the question stateside. The vacuum is most recently felt in the developing animus between public health officials and artisan cheesemakers. What Europe has long streamlined into amicable regulation, the United States has lurched into clumsy opposition: cheese wheels are increasingly treated as suitcase bombs filled with Listeria.

After [more than] sixty years of industrial production Americans have quite forgotten the logistics of real food.

There are three broad classes of alternatives floating about the small but growing food movement. Prelapsarian fantasies widely prevalent would have us return to the family farm as it never existed. On the other hand, the microgeographic localism now emerging appears as much a victim of diminished expectations, provisional classism, and the constraints imposed by a scarcity of working examples as of agribusiness’s stranglehold on the market. If pursued to the logical and logistical conclusions, both options, as geographer David Harvey noted in a recent radio interview, would likely contribute to the kinds of famines that predated industrial development (as opposed to the very different famines that originate in today’s global capitalism).

There are, however, visionaries here and abroad who have blocked out broader possibilities tied to both the contours of our historical present and the globalized economy. This third class appears based on real-life experience and some intriguing, albeit often preliminary, experimentation:

1) In his campaign for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, dairy farmer Francis Thicke (pronounced TICK-ee) described a regionalization encompassing trade policy, energy, farm structure, and environmental regulation. [….]

2) With the support of the Mexican government, Zapotec Indians have developed a certified-sustainable, community-controlled forestry. Plain pine is sold to the government and … finished goods, including furniture, are produced in an on-site factory. The Oaxaca cooperative, still a work in progress, plows a third of its profits back into the business, a third into forest preservation, and the rest into its worker and the local community, including pensions, a credit union, and housing for its children studying at university.

3) Dialectical biologist Richard Levins, collaborating with Cuban colleagues on ecological approaches to local agriculture and public health summarizes some of the many adjustments a new agriculture anywhere may require … :

‘Instead of having to decide between large-scale industrial type production and a ‘small is beautiful’ approach a priori, we saw the scale of agriculture as dependent on natural and social conditions, with the units of planning embracing many units of production. Different scales of farming would be adjusted to the watershed, climatic zones and topography, population density, distribution of available resources, and the mobility of pests and their enemies.

The random patchwork of peasant agriculture, constrained by land tenure, and the harsh destructive landscapes of industrial farming would both be replaced by a planned mosaic of land uses in which each patch contributes its own products but also assists the production of other patches: forests give lumber, fuel, fruit,, nuts, and honey but also regulate the flow of water, modulate the climate to a distance of about 10 times the height of the trees, create a special microclimate downwind from the edge, offer shade for livestock and the workers, and provide a home to the natural enemies of pests and pollinators of crops. There would no longer be specialized farms producing only one thing. Mixed enterprises would allow for recycling, a more diverse diet for the farmers, and a hedge against climatic surprises. It would have a more uniform demand for labor throughout the year.’

Rather than to the expectations of an abstract neoclassical or all-too-real neoliberal model of production, the scale and practice of agriculture can be flexibly tailored to each region’s physical, social, and epidemiological landscapes on the ground, interconnecting ecology and the economy. Under such an arrangement not all parcels will be necessarily profitable. As Levins points out, whatever reductions in income farms accrue in protecting the rest of the region must be offset by regular redistributive mechanisms. [….]

There is a dawning realization that Big Ag, whatever its power and infrastructure, is, to use an iconic Texanism, all hat and not cattle. Propping up the empire is little else but a raw greed and political power turning biology—human and animal—into cash at any and all costs. The paradigm behind the food and farming—ostensibly the industry’s raison d’être—is bankrupt to its core.

When the use value of food, of all things, is traded in for surplus value, humanity’s survival is nothing less than threatened (and the integral pleasures of eating abandoned). When most commercial grade poultry feed is purposely laced with arsenic to keep bird flesh pink over shipment and sale, there is seriously sociopathic denialism at work. When U.S. livestock are stuffed with up to 28 million pounds of antibiotics annually solely to accelerate growth to a finishing weight, providing stock enough protection only until their industrial diet kills them, perversity verges on perversion. When livestock monopolies manipulate already cheap and highly subsidized prices by forcing farmers to sell their animals all at the same time, a criminality masquerades as the law of the land.

And yet even in the face of such unprecedented power and a relentless propaganda, a swelling number of Americans are coming around.” [….]

Rob Wallace, from an article in Farming Pathogens, 16 December 2010 (Big Farms: 118-123)

Toward New Models for the Scale and Practice of Agriculture, No. 2

2018-04-05T21:05:00.002-04:00

Our first post, with an introduction to this series, is here.

“Dumping grain on another country is a classic maneuver in economic warfare. When a country’s borders are opened by force or by choice, by structural adjustment or by neoliberal trade agreement, when tariffs and other forms of protectionism are finally scotched, heavily subsidized multinational agribusinesses can flood the new market with commodities at prices less than their production costs.

That is, these companies are happy to sell their foodstuffs abroad at a loss. That doesn’t make sense, you say. Aren’t these guys in business for profit? They are indeed. The deficits are in actuality a cold-blooded calculation. The objective is to drive previously domestic sectors unable to compete with that kind of pricing, out of business. Once the mom-and-pop competition is rubbed out, Walmart-style, the multinationals, their competition cleared off the field, can impose what prices they please across a market they now dominate. [….]

When what is illegal at home in the United States is perfectly legal elsewhere, move your operations offshore. In many countries of the Global South, few labor laws and environmental regulations are on the books. For those that are, enforcement is lax or bribed away. On the other hand, when what is legal in the United States in banned elsewhere, export U.S. rules. Subject other countries’ domestic operations to the kind of discipline of the invisible hand one’s own multinationals avoid like the plague. Impose a protectionism in reverse. [….]

In a kind of bioeconomic warfare, agribusiness can prosper when deadly influenza strains originating from their own operations spread out to their smaller competition. No conspiracy theory need apply. No virus engineered in a laboratory. No conscious acts of espionage or sabotage. Rather we have here an emergent neglect from the moral hazard that arises when the costs of intensive husbandry are externalized. The financial tab for these outbreaks is routinely picked up by governments and taxpayers worldwide. So why should agribusiness bother with ending practices that repeatedly interrupt economies and will someday produce a virus that kills hundreds of millions of people? Companies are often compelled to invest in livestock vaccination and biosecurity—however incomplete—but if the full costs of outbreaks were placed on their balance sheets larger operations as we know them would cease to exist.

Corporate farms are also able to skirt the economic punishments of the outbreaks they cause by their horizontal integration. They can weather the resulting bad publicity and intermittent breaks in their commodity chains by increasing production in affiliates elsewhere. [….] A supply chain arrayed across multiple countries can compensate for the interruptions in business, even as it also, ironically enough, increases the risk of influenza spread.

In contrast, many small farmers suffer catastrophically from this virus dumping, even when they’re under contract to agricultural companies. Smallholders typically can’t afford the biosecurity changes needed to protect themselves from such outbreaks in the first place or the wholesale repopulation of their livestock in the aftermath (even when subsidized in part by the government). Living market day to day, they can’t afford the losses incurred upon their already thin margins when their operations are disrupted by the government-imposed quarantines and culling campaigns that follow.

That’s nasty. But the insult to injury is in agribusiness’s faux-righteous follow-up. And here we see the kind of conscious manipulation at the heart of grain dumping. In an act of evil genius, multinationals support national efforts to institute biosecurity standards only the largest companies can afford. [….] The diseases that wipe out Big Food’s smaller competitors also offer an opportunity to cripple them between outbreaks.”

Rob Wallace, from an article in Farming Pathogens, 11 November 2010 (Big Farms: 112-117).

Toward new models for the scale and practice of agriculture

2018-04-02T10:08:00.000-04:00

Over the course of a month or two (perhaps longer), I’m going to occasionally post snippets from a handful of Rob Wallace’s rhetorically pungent, intellectually incisive, and politically powerful collection of essays in his book Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatchers on Infectious Disease, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science (Monthly Review Press, 2016). Early last year I posted notice of an article in New Left Review, 102 (Nov/Dec 2016): “Ebola’s Ecologies: Agro-Economics and Epidemiology in West Africa,” co-authored by Rob Wallace and Rodrick Wallace, appending a list of suggested reading that included Big Farms. I will post bits and pieces from the book sans the notes and with slight editing (e.g., in the interest of length, I’ve left out some of the many examples that illuminate the arguments), although I may provide some embedded links (some of which may be in the book’s notes). As this work—with notes—is well over 400 pages, the material I’m sharing is best viewed as providing but the slightest taste of its contents, although I hope it is sufficiently representative and enticing enough to stimulate your desire to read it in toto.

Rob Wallace, an evolutionary biologist, is currently an advisor for the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy (IATP) and a visiting lecturer at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Global Studies. He blogs at Farming Pathogens.

* * *

“For the past three decades, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have made loans to poorer countries conditioned on removing supports for domestic food markets. Small farmers cannot compete with cheaper corporate imports subsidized by the Global North. Many farmers either give up for a life on peri-urban margins or are forced to contract out their services—their land, their labor—to livestock multinationals now free to move in. The World Trade Organization’s Trade-Related Investment Measures permit foreign companies, aiming to reduce production costs, to purchase and consolidate small producers in poorer countries. [….]

Clearly agribusiness, structural adjustment, global finance, environmental destruction, climate change, and the emergence of pathogenic influenzas are more tightly integrated than previously thought. The nest of dependencies requires fuller investigation. [….]

While the argument has been made that corporate food supplies the cheap protein many of the poorest need, the millions of small farmers who fed themselves (and many millions more) would never have needed such a supply if they had not been pushed off their lands in the first place. A reversal need not involve ending global trade or an anachronistic turn to the small family farm, but might include domestically protected farming at multiple scales. Farm ownership, infrastructure, working conditions, and animal health are inextricably linked. Once workers have a stake in both input and output—the latter by outright ownership, profit sharing, or the food itself—production can be structured in such a way that respects human welfare, and, as a consequence, animal health. With locale-specific farming, genetic monocultures of domesticated animals which promote the evolution of virulence can be diversified back into heirloom varieties that can serve as immunological firebreaks. The economic losses influenza imposes upon global livestock can be tempered: fewer interruptions, eradication campaigns, price jolts, emergency vaccinations, and wholesale repopulations. Rather than jury-rigged with each outbreak, the capacity for restricting livestock movement is built naturally into the regional farm model. [….]

Rather than to the expectations of an abstract neoclassical model of production, the scale and practice of agriculture can be flexibly tailored to each region’s physical, social, and epidemiological landscapes on the ground. At the same time, it needs to be acknowledged that under such arrangements not all parcels will be routinely profitable. As [Richard] Levins points out, whatever reductions in income farms accrue in protecting the rest of the region must be offset by regular redistributive mechanisms.” [….]

From the article, “The Political Virology of Offshore Farming,” first published in Antipode, November 2009 (Big Farms …: 50-84).

Documentary on Dolores Huerta: “Dolores”

2018-03-28T18:38:00.000-04:00

Some readers—as viewers!—may be interested (assuming you’ve yet to see it) in the recent documentary on the remarkable and inspiring life of Dolores Huerta on PBS (Independent Lens): “Dolores.”

And should you have missed its earlier posting, here is my bibliography for “César Chávez & the United Farm Workers … and the Struggle of Farm Workers in the U.S.”

Image: “Yreina D.Cervántez’ 1989 mural La Ofrenda, painted under a bridge in downtown Los Angeles.... In it, Cervántez—an artist and Chicana activist—pays homage to Dolores Huerta, co-founder with César Chávez of the United Farm Workers of America.”

Famine: History, Causes, and Consequences — A Select Bibliography

2018-03-24T19:15:00.002-04:00

My latest bibliography, on the history, causes, and consequences of famine, is here. Compilations with significant family resemblance:

Down on the Farm: Nostalgic Ideological Hegemony in the Service of Agribusiness, Big Data, and AI, or, Capitalist Agriculture and Country Music

2018-03-24T13:14:00.000-04:00

“Agriculture Wars”

By Nick Murray (March 12, 2018), for Viewpoint Magazine

“The town of Maricopa may be surrounded by Arizona desert, but a small plot of land near its northern border may qualify as the most closely studied piece of farmland our planet has ever produced. Here stands the LemnaTec Scanalyzer. Weighing some 50,000 pounds, the device sits on a steel gantry that moves back and forth along tracks that line the field. It monitors the growth of every plant below it, and by the end of the day it generates five to eight terabytes of data. What it records could help scientists develop the next generation of genetically modified seeds. The University of Arizona, the company LemnaTec and the U.S. Government, which funded the project through the Department of Energy, all agree: this could be the future of agriculture.

‘Culture in all its early uses was a noun of process,’ Raymond Williams says in Keywords. It described ‘the tending of something, basically crops or animals.’ Eventually, by way of metaphor, the word was ‘extended to a process of human development.’ But the roots run deeper still: for much of human history, culture, in the sense of ceremony and arts, has been tied closely with cycles of agriculture, from work songs in fields to celebrations of harvest. In America, this tradition sees some of its most potent representation in country music. The genre has produced countless songs about life on the farm, but few are as straightforward as Alabama’s ‘American Farmer,’ from 2015. ‘They’re out there every morning, planting those seeds in the ground/Riding those big wheels, until the sun goes down,’ sings the group’s frontman, Randy Owen. Owen tells a familiar story, paying tribute to the wholesome grit of the farm tradition. Yet with the nature of farming accelerating rapidly into the future, the labor he describes could soon be obsolete. Not many farmers will ever have access to a 50,000 pound robotic field scanner, but if the corporations that dominate the agriculture industry get their way, farmers will see their work transformed by smaller devices like drones, automated tractors, and mini-robots that crawl the ground.

At the front of this shift is the German company Bayer AG. We usually associate the name Bayer with aspirin – or heroin, which it trademarked in the late 1800s – but the pharmaceutical giant has steadily grown into one of biggest names in agriculture. In 2014, its market capitalization – the value of its outstanding shares – stood around $112 billion. This should soon rise: Bayer is now in the process of acquiring the American seed and pesticide firm Monsanto, itself worth around $66 billion. Now, on Bayer’s ‘Crop Science’ website, the company promotes technological upgrades geared to the future. One article mentions another ‘scanalyzer’ that ‘allows an automated measuring of crop growth.’ But planting those crops can be automated too, and to this end, Bayer promotes a robot called Prospero, an ‘agricrab’ that scuttles across fields, drills holes and deposits seeds.

Prospero’s inventor, David Dorhout, imagines a small army of these on every farm, a ‘swarm of autonomous robots’ doing all the things Alabama’s American Farmer used to do. So what happens to the farmer? Dorhout has already considered this: ‘The farmer acts like a shepherd, giving his swarm instructions,’ he says. ‘Then his robots carry out these orders by communicating with each other through infrared signals.’ In bigger picture, robots like Prospero will ‘change the role of a farmer from being a driver to an instructor, which robots will pick up,’ Dorhut continues. They will ‘alleviate the physical work of farmers, which gives them more time to focus on the economic part of their business.’

If country music gave voice to many American farmers during the 20th century, what does it have to say about the fundamental shift in farm labor that is coming to define the 21st? If farmers become robot herders, spending more time in Quicken than in the field, what will that mean for the culture that grew out of it? Will representations of farm work, like those in country music, keep pace with its realities?

The ongoing process of automation affects jobs in just about every sector of the economy, yet for farming, the shift toward robots creates a unique ideological problem. That’s because in American culture, the farmer usually represents self-sufficiency, both personal and national – the ability to live with two hands, connected to the land, without the need for modern devices like robots and computers. In country music, no song makes such a claim quite as forcefully as Hank Williams, Jr.‘s ‘A Country Boy Can Survive.’

A Number Two hit in 1984, ‘Country Boy’ beings by foretelling an apocalypse: ‘The preacher man says it’s the end of time, and the Mississippi River she’s a goin’ dry.’ The resulting environment of scarcity and conflict divides urban from rural, businessman from farmer. You can guess which side adapts quickest. Though as Hank tells it, the rural country folk barely need to adapt at all. They already know how to plow a field, harvest heirloom tomatoes and ferment wine. ‘I got a shotgun, a rifle and a 4-wheel drive,’ he sings. What more does one need?

Williams’s country folk are drawn from myth as much as fact. Subsistence farming was once common in regions like Appalachia, but by 1984, the practice was nearly extinct. In the coal mines that the singer mentions, subsistence farmers were violently incorporated into the markets of capitalism. Those still in business tend to grow one crop, like wheat or corn, as nodes in a supply chain that extends around the globe. If ‘Country Boy’ is an indignant song, some its fire seems to come from this fact: the singer has missed the first era of American household agriculture, so he eagerly anticipates the divine providence that will bring about a second.

Thus ‘Country Boy’ is at once nostalgic and millenarian. It claims to speak for the working class yet it rejects solidarity with the urban poor. Over 30 years later, it remains one of country music’s major points of reference. We hear its title spoken at the end of tracks like Montgomery Gentry’s ‘Daddy Won’t Sell the Farm’ and looped throughout Blake Shelton’s ‘Boys ‘Round Here.’ Search its title alongside the name of just about any male country star and there’s a good chance you’ll find shaky cell phone footage of a live cover.

So what happens when even farmers lose the skills that Hank Williams, Jr. is counting on? We can begin to trace this shift even in the multiple versions of ‘A Country Boy Can Survive.’ On songs like the anti-gay, anti-disco ‘Dinosaur,’ Hank Williams, Jr. proudly proclaims his obstinacy, his refusal to change with the times. But when it comes to ‘Country Boy,’ even he has twice amended his own tune. In 1999, Williams collaborated with George Jones and Chad Brock on a ‘Y2K Version’ of ‘Country Boy Can Survive.’ The update emphasized the country boy’s distance from Wall Street; a new line proclaimed that ‘if the bank machines crash, we’ll be just fine.’

Yet two years later, after the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center, Williams returned to the studio to record a new version called ‘America Will Survive.’ The original had seemed to imagine a world after America, and took its own shots at downtown Manhattan, hardly acceptable in late 2001. But this latest iteration attempted to reconcile the earlier contradictions – urban and rural, farm and finance – in defense of a nation that will now triumph together. As Hank sings:

Our flag is up since our people went down
And we’re together from the country to town
We live back in the woods, you see
Big city problems never bothered me
But now the world has changed and so have I.

A changed world needs changed country stars. Enter Luke Bryan. [….]

[And now, the article’s conclusion.]

Harlan Howard famously described country music as ‘three chords and the truth.’ This connection-turned-cliché is one reason why companies like Bayer work so hard to become associated with country music. There’s reason to doubt the political efficacy of benefit concerts, and one may certainly hesitate to call for more, but in the 1980s and ‘90s Farm Aid somewhat successfully used music – especially rock and country – to link farming with liberal politics suspicious of big business. These politics may be milquetoast, but for corporations like those described above, that link can pose an existential threat – a bigger threat even than the money that Farm Aid raises for charity, the organization’s nominal purpose. The Here’s to the Farmer campaign should be understood in part as an intervention responding to this particular problem. Its purpose is not just to build brand awareness in the United States, but to break this chain: to encourage country listeners to identify less with a political position than with the brands themselves.

This state of affairs is troubling, but there is no reason to assume it should be final. A corresponding intervention might not just attempt to undo the advances of companies like Bayer, but rather to raise the stakes further, beyond even the bourgeois politics of organizations like Farm Aid. Such a move only seems far-fetched if we fix country to descriptors like ‘conservative’ and ‘traditional’ while ignoring the antagonisms that take shape in the music itself.

One such antagonism lies between the desire for autonomy or self-sufficiency and growth of capitalism, which requires people to submit to the market. Country music may be used to reinforce this submission, but intervention in country music might also attempt to change the way this desire is articulated within the genre, linking its fulfillment to a new anti-capitalist politics. Something like this can only happen through engagement with country music and the spaces in which it takes place. If it doesn’t happen, we might expect to hear more songs like Upchurch’s revanchist rap. Lacking anti-capitalist politics, this same desire for self-sufficiency can produce not socialism but nativism and fascism.

Meanwhile, many of the farmers that country music claims to be speaking for continue to engage in their own forms of cultural resistance, in Raymond Williams’s pre-industrial sense. After the ratification of NAFTA in 1994, indigenous farmers in Mexico, often aligned with the Zapatista movement, rejected hybrid corn seeds, arguing that they displaced native plants and destabilized local economies. In 2010, a group of Haitian peasants promised to burn hybrid seeds that Monsanto shipped into the country in the guise of earthquake relief. Now, back in the United States, two new varieties of open-pollinated corn seed have been bred specifically so that farmers can save their seeds without risking cross-pollination from hybrids or GMOs in neighboring fields. Their names ‘Rebellion’ and ‘Revolt.’”

The full article is here. (Nick Murray is journalist based in New York City. He is a former editor at Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, and has contributed to the New York Times, Pitchfork, and Vice.)

Image: Prospero – “This micro planter from Iowa cultivates fields in a swarm: Its six legs provide the necessary stability for uneven farmland. Prospero checks whether a certain section of the soil has already been planted. It digs holes, places seeds, marks the spot and if required also sprays fertilizer or herbicides.”

“Animal Colonialism: The Case of Milk”

2017-10-04T09:49:00.001-04:00

New article of interest: Mathilde Cohen, “Animal Colonialism: The Case of Milk,” American Journal of International Law Unbound (September 2017) Volume 111: 267-271.

[Being a vegan, and with a significant portion of my worldview best described as Marxist,* I’m predisposed to find the argument in this very short article congenial. No doubt others will view it differently.]

The first two paragraphs:

“Greta Gaard writes that ‘[t]he pervasive availability of cows’ milk today—from grocery stores to gas stations—is a historically unprecedented product of industrialization, urbanization, culture, and economics.’ To these factors, I would add colonialism and international law; the latter understood broadly to include the rules considered binding between states and nations, transnational law, legal transplants, international food aid, and international trade law. Until the end of the Nineteenth Century, the majority of the world population neither raised animals for their milk nor consumed animal milk. Humans are unique in the mammalian realm in that they drink the milk of other species, including beyond infancy. With the European conquest of the New World and other territories starting in the Sixteenth Century, dairying began to spread worldwide—settlers did not set out to colonize lands and people alone; they brought with them their flora, fauna, and other forms of life, including lactating animals such as cows and sheep.

Bridging the gap between scholarship on animal colonialism and on imperialism and motherhood, this essay argues that lactating animals became integral parts of colonial and neocolonial projects as tools of agro-expansionism and human population planning. Due to its disruptive effects on breastfeeding cultures, the global spread of dairying has not only been detrimental for the welfare of animals, but also for humans, especially mothers and their children. I recognize the simplistic aspect of grouping and analyzing together disparate epochs, regions, peoples, and animals in an inter-imperial historical vein. I do not mean to imply that these epochs, regions, peoples, and animals belong to a coherent whole, but only that despite their diversity, they have experienced comparable forms of state-building projects centered upon the consumption of animal milk. As an aside, animal protection law and advocacy is often critiqued for its supposed cultural imperialism, but as the following discussion illustrates, it may be that the lack of concern for animal welfare exhibited by legal systems was bequeathed by hegemonic European colonizers.”

* At least I’m in good company, the Dalai Lama having recently reminded us that he too is a Marxist. Please see this recent interview: Anup Dhar, Anjan Chakrabarti, and Serap Kayatekin, “Crossing Materialism and Religion: An Interview on Marxism and Spiritual with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama,” Rethinking Marxism, Vol. 28, Nos 3-4: 584-598.

Ricardo Flores Magón, PLM, and the Labor Struggles of California Farmworkers

2017-09-16T11:21:00.004-04:00

“Cipriano Ricardo Flores Magón (known as Ricardo Flores Magón; September 16, 1874 – November 21, 1922) was a noted Mexican anarchist and social reform activist. His brothers Enrique and Jesús were also active in politics. Followers of the Magón brothers were known as Magonistas. He has been considered an important participant in the social movement that sparked the Mexican Revolution.”

“Periodically throughout their history, California farmworkers have fought vigorously, sometimes in small, local battles unknown to anyone but the immediate participants, and at other times in large campaigns—directed by radical or even openly revolutionary leaders—that have lasted for several seasons. The nature of these fights is rooted in the special character of agricultural production and in the real opportunities that farmworkers have encountered in the fields for nearly a hundred years.” Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers (Verso, 2011)

The “special character of agricultural production” Bardacke refers to above includes the “short-lived harvest” period, as it is only during this precious time of year that a commodity is produced (although various kinds of work on the land are performed throughout the year), thus leaving the commercial farmer vulnerable to interruptions or delays. Another conspicuous vulnerability arises from the dependence on migratory workers, the demand for labor varying greatly throughout the year. Hence, Bardacke informs us,

“Time is often on the workers’ side, and they have not hesitated to seize it. Brief harvest walkouts, sit-downs, slow-downs, and stay-at-homes are part of farmworker tradition, weapons used much more regularly by agricultural workers than by industrial workers.”

Before the Depression-era upheaval that led to various forms of worker militancy, both spontaneous and organized, there were several years of “militant farmworker action [and] significant wage gains” that presaged patterns of future farmworker struggles. Unfortunately, these early battles did not result in a lasting union for those who labored on the land. Again, Bardacke:

“Between 1914 and 1917, in a period of overall labor scarcity, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), at times in tandem with the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) [organized by Ricardo Flores Magón and later led by both Ricardo and his youngest brother, Enrique], led a series of walkouts in the California fields, orchard, and vineyards that pushed up wages, forced labor-camp managers to provide better food, and prompted the state of California to build an extensive series of new labor camps, which improved the lives of many migrants. A harvest-time strike in the hops in 1914 doubled piece-rate wages, and by 1917, the average wage of California farmworkers had risen to nearly 90 percent of the average wage of California’s city workers.”

Ricardo Flores Magón had been a leader of university student protests in Mexico City in the 1890s and as early as 1904, the “Magonistas” (largely anarchist in political ideology) who found sanctuary in the U.S., “began to send emissaries—revolutionary culture brokers—into the mining camps of the Mexican north and into the agrarian villages as far south as Veracruz and Oaxaca.” And for this and other reasons, Flores Magón “is celebrated in Mexican secondary school textbooks as a ‘precursor’ of the [Mexican] Revolution.”

In California, Flores Magón “and a small band of comrades” whose “interest was not primarily California farmworkers,” continued to publish their weekly newspaper, Regeneración (in turn smuggled back into Mexico), and “for which [Ricardo] wrote political and social commentary.” As Bardacke reminds us, Flores Magón and the PLM were nevertheless indirectly active in the agricultural fields of California, as Ricardo and Enrique, together with a “substantial number of displaced Mexican revolutionaries,”

“… set up a series of PLM clubs in the Southwest and California. Those clubs attracted Mexican migrant workers, some of whom began to call themselves Magonistas. The clubs were linked through Regeneración and several other local, less regular PLM newspapers. Club leaders read the newspaper out loud to assembled groups of workers, who then discussed the situation in Mexico and their own troubles in the United States.

The hub of PLM power was Los Angeles, which was still an agricultural town in 1907 when the Flores Magón brothers settled there, and already was the center of the Mexican community in the United States. The PLM’s LA clubhouse became a center of multilingual, multiethnic activity where socialists and Wobblies famous and obscure mixed with Magonistas. Regeneración, its back page printed in English, built up an LA circulation of 10,000, making it both the first bilingual paper in California and the largest Spanish-language newspaper in town. The PLM club, which was also considered a Spanish-speaking IWW local, had 400 active members, most of who were farmworkers.”

Magonistas were soon found throughout Spanish-speaking IWW locals in Southern and Central California. Whatever their cultural and language differences, Wobblies and Magonistas were united in their political ideology and political praxis:

“In San Diego in 1910, a joint IWW-PLM local organized a strike at the local gas and electric company that won equal pay for equal work. That same year a fight for free speech that ultimately did much to popularize the IWW among California farmworkers, began in Fresno in the midst of a battle to organize Mexican workers who were being contracted to build a dam on the outskirts of town. In hop fields, vineyards, sugar refineries, and citrus orchards, many farmworker walkouts were joint Wobbly-Magonista efforts.”

Our short story ends on a tragic note, for “[i]n 1918, Ricardo Flores Magón, along with other PLM and IWW leaders, was convicted of violating the Espionage Act … for ‘obstructing the war effort.’” Ricardo died on November 21, 1922 at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas. Alas, and for motley reasons, one of the foremost being the appeal of communism and the rise of Communist parties following the Russian Revolution, the IWW and PLM did not formally survive World War I. All the same,

“… Magonismo never totally disappeared from the California fields. Remaining underground in unfavorable times such as 1939, Magonismo has reappeared whenever farmworkers have had an opportunity to fight. It is there when they slow down on the job, sabotage the crops, or strike at the beginning of a harvest. Magonistas played a part in Imperial Valley melon and lettuce strikes in the late 1920s. They worked together with other militants when California farmworkers shook the state in the early 1930s. A generation later a few Magonistas would play a small role as the movement that produced the UFW was getting under way. And in 1979, the ghost of Ricardo Flores Magón would make a cameo appearance at one of the most dramatic moments in UFW history.”

Further Reading:

Albro, Ward S. Always a Rebel: Ricardo Flores Magón and the Mexican Revolution. Fort Worth, TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1992.
Chacón, Justin Akers. Radicals in the Barrio: Magonistas, Socialists, Wobblies, and Communists in the Mexican-American Working Class. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, Forthcoming.
Daniel, Cletus E. Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870-1941. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981.
Dyson, Lowell K. Red Harvest: The Communist Party and American Farmers. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
Hart, John M. Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1978.
Lomnitz, Claudio. The Return of Comrade Ricardo Flores Magón. New York: Zone Books, 2014.
MacLachlan, Colin M. Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: The Political Trials of Ricardo Flores Magón in the United States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991.

Rethinking Agricultural History

2017-09-12T09:25:00.001-04:00

A comparatively short(!) new article I believe worthy of your attention: Nathan A. Rosenberg and Bryce Wilson Stucki, “The Butz Stops Here: Why the Food Movement Needs to Rethink Agricultural History”

Abstract

“From the 1890s to the 1930s, rural Americans played a vital role in radical leftist politics. Over the decades, some of those people chose to leave, but more of them were driven out due to policy — agricultural policy, in particular. Republicans and Democrats, alike, have supported laws that favor corporate agriculture, which continue to drive small farmers out of business and depopulate the countryside. While specialists know this history well, the public tends to know a folk history, written by figures associated with contemporary food movements.

This folk history rests on several key myths, which cover different periods of modern history from the New Deal to the present. We challenge these myths, not to attack particular authors or engage in pedantry, but to reveal the causes and extent of the suffering endured by rural families in the 20th century, which in turn, decimated the populist left. A reconsideration of the history of agricultural policy will help food-system reformers develop a more radical — and more effective — vision for rural America.”

Agricultural Hegemony and Farm Workers

2017-07-19T21:10:00.000-04:00

Patrick O'Donnell's recent posting of Marion Nestle's interview with a Western grower CEO and attendant commentary, contributes greatly to understanding the irreconcilable differences between farm labor skills with the risk of agricultural enterprises facing decreasing labor shortages. At this juncture, a brief reminder is further required and the goal of this post.

One avenue suggested is to increase immigration entry to meet growers' labor needs. This trajectory however will not satisfy the laborers needed to cultivate and harvest the crops worth billions across the nation. This results because federal law, agricultural policies and the agricultural hegemony that purports to seek protecting small owner operations are skewed to facilitate large scale agricultural industries.

In contrast, attempts to amend or revise federal law to protect workers are met with the unmitigated force of agricultural lobbyists, political representatives of agriculture dominated states, and a host of other political actors surging against the proposed legislation.

For example, the Department of Labor (DOL) ignited a firestorm when it sought changing the Fair Labor Standards Act to protect children employed in agriculture. The inherent systemic danger of farm employment necessitated the proposed changes. With the full force of Hurricane Katrina, the agricultural industry without haste rejected the proposed "Child Labor Regulations" (CLR). The CLR would have obligated imposed standards and would have shifted the agricultural norms of employing youth in agriculture without regard to the dangers they confront. In contrast, an ocean of lobbying, political jockeying during a presidential race, opposition from governors of agricultural states and a host of others, shifted the intent and purpose of the CLR with misrepresentations. This oppositional army campaigned the media to skew the CLR as intruding on "family relationships" and "small family farm" operations. One principal argument against the CLR further encompassed the notion that farm work grants children necessary discipline and beneficial working benefits.

It is not difficult to wonder how the opposing forces could reconcile their assertions with the families of Jade Garza and Hannah Kendall. Both fourteen-year-olds, Jade and Hannah, joined an army of youth to detassel corn. Their goal was to save money for school supplies and clothing. Instead Jade and Hannah identified as the best of friends met their untimely deaths. During this regional "summer rite of passage" the two girls were killed "after they came in contact with irrigation equipment or a nearby puddle conducting high voltage." The girls worked for Monsanto Corp., through a labor contractor.

Area teachers and others recruit youth to satisfy the need for cheap labor contingent on parents giving their permission. Nothing however is provided on the forms as to the inherent dangers employment in agriculture entails. The legal relationship moreover between labor contractors and employees remains murky with case law exemptions that distance the employer of the contractor from workers in the event of accidents or deaths.

The CLR provides but one example seeking to change agricultural norms against the dire working conditions and plight of youth and children in the fields. Yet not unlike other protective legislative attempts, an unrelenting backlash further resulted in political representatives introducing their own version of protecting small farmers. Reinforcing their version also included a clause that disallowed DOL Secretary Hilda Solis from re-introducing further youth related measures. In its totality, this war against protecting children caused the DOL to retreat from its first attempt to substantively change the FLSA since the 1970s.

Outside of deaths and injuries, the environment also imposes its own type of hardship from illnesses specific to the crops harvested, intense heat, and distance from water, rest breaks or other forms of relief. Pesticides and herbicides and other dangers also instigate their own brand of toxicity and illnesses in the workplace. The grueling nature of cultivating and harvesting crops thereby exacts a tremendous realm of body injuries and at times deaths of workers in the fields. Yet repeatedly decade after decade federal law and agricultural policies fail them.

Neither increased mechanization nor the reliance on economies of scale or even enlarged immigration entries of farm laborers will protect farmers. In exchange, placing state and federal agricultural economies at risk. New trajectories and legal compromises that escape the hegemony of agricultural employment are thereby obligated.

If and whenever new protective legislation is introduced to protect workers and youth a new trajectory is required to counter the lies, deceit and false constructs so adhered to within the agricultural sector. Specifically the regulatory agency should require objective and empirical primary evidence to test the generalized misrepresentations that perpetuate agricultural false norms.

Notwithstanding the false norms that dominant federal law, agricultural operations need farmworkers or risk economic ruin. Farmworkers require improved terms and conditions of employment even against the false norms that dominate federal law agricultural operations and the political zeitgeist of the times. This template accordingly signals it is beyond time to change federal law to not only protect workers from unsavory working conditions but to prevent crops from rotting in the fields.

Resources
1. Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of Interpretations, 76 Fed. Reg. 54386 (proposed Sept. 2, 2011).
2. Preserving America's Family Farms Act, H.R. 4157, 112th Cong. (2012).
3. For further resources see Guadalupe T. Luna, Unsavory Associations--Placing Migrant Children in Harm's Way: The Withdrawal of Child Labor Rules from the Fair Labor Standards Act, 16 St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice, (2014).

An Agribusiness Perspective on Farm Labor & Immigration

2017-05-18T01:46:00.001-04:00

Migrant workers harvest corn on Uesugi Farms in Gilroy, California (2013). U.S. Department of Agriculture

At Food Politics, Marion Nestle shares an interview with Tom Nassif, the CEO of the Western Growers. “Nassif represents this trade association for industrial agricultural producers in the West and Southwest. He discusses how immigration issues affect farm labor from the perspective of producers.”

The entire interview is worth reading, but I want to highlight the following two questions and answers, commenting—by way of the work of Frank Bardacke—on the second one below:

1. Some people say farmers just have to pay more for their labor.
“Anyone who is an enlightened observer of immigration reform and agriculture knows that’s not true. Wages have continually gone up. And the supply of labor keeps diminishing. … It’s not the wages, it’s the work. This is a difficult job. This is seasonal. This is migratory. This is not full time. This requires people to be away from their families. So that’s not very attractive work. And money alone isn’t going to do it, because farm workers aren’t raising their kids to be farm workers and certainly people here lawfully in the United States are not willing to do that kind of work when they have so many economic opportunities. As you know, Mexico is now importing farm workers [from other countries], because even in Mexico they are seeing better economic opportunities than being a farm worker.”

2. How in danger are produce growers of being put out of business by the current labor situation?
“I think several of the smaller to midsize operators are in danger of either having to cease farming or sell their operations to larger producers who have the wherewithal to withstand some of the things that are happening because they are able to invest in and develop more mechanical harvesting and other robotic operations. In many cases it will take the farmer a million dollars or more just to develop a harvesting machine for a particular commodity.”
* * *
As a prelude to the topic of increased mechanization of harvesting processes (and consequent devaluation of manual labor or Marx’s ‘cunning of the hand’), permit me to quote from Frank Bardacke’s “masterpiece,” Trampling Out the Vintage: César Chávez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers (Verso, 2011):

“Not all farm jobs require equal skill. Different techniques are required for thinning, weeding, or harvesting, for working on the ground or climbing on ladders, for working by the hour or doing piece work, and each crop has its craft secrets and know-how. It is one thing to pick lettuce, another to girdle table grapes, another yet to pick lemons. Not all the physical skill of farmwork depends on the coordination of accomplished hands and sharp, experienced eyes. The work also requires physical endurance. Farm work is hard not only in the sense of being skilled but also in the sense of requiring toil, exertion, and extended physical effort. When arriving in the early morning to begin work, Pablo Camacho would often say, ‘Ya llegamos al campo de la batalla’ – ‘Now we arrive at the field of battle.’ Although intending to provoke a smile, Camacho was not being ironic. Most people who have worked in the fields say that it is the hardest work they have ever done. It is hard to put up with the inevitable pain and physical exhaustion, to last until the end of the row, the end of the day, the week, the season. ‘To last’ is not quite the right word. The right word is a Spanish one, aguantar: to endure, to bear, to put up with.

Pablo Camacho was proud of his ability to aguantar, even arrogant about it, often claiming that he never felt pain while he was working. That is a pose that a lot of farmworkers assume, even among themselves. At work, no one complains about pain. Camacho believed that the ability to put up with pain was part of the Mexican national character, especially evident in sports. Like many farmworkers, he was an avid boxing fan. He could name all the boxing champions in the lighter divisions from the 1930s to the 1970s, as well as recount the ways Mexican fighters had been denied championship opportunities. Mexicans were the best boxers in the world, he argued, especially in their ability to withstand punishment. They were also good marathon runners and long-distance bicycle racers, he said, sports in which endurance and patience are the essential virtues.

But Mexicans do not have an exclusive franchise on the ability to tolerate hard work. Endurance is a trait of slaves and the oppressed in general, and also characteristic of peasants and other agricultural people – whether free or unfree. Agriculture by its very nature requires patience. Farmworkers have to wait for nature to do her work. They must plant, water, and wait. Weed and wait. And, finally, after enduring the wait, they may harvest.

[….] Aristotle contended that ‘occupations are … the most servile in which there is greatest use of the body.’ The dynamic relationship between the brain and the hand was ripped asunder by early philosophers, leaving two separate activities: valued intellectual labor (suitable for free men) and devalued manual labor (suitable for women and slaves). This philosophical predisposition against the work of the body had its greatest worldly triumph in the development of capitalism and the factory system. As Marx so passionately chronicled, English factories destroyed English handicrafts. What he called ‘modern industry’ – machines built by other machines strung together in a continuous process of production, where laborers are ‘mere appendages’ to the machinery – replaced the earlier system of production that ‘owed its existence to personal strength and personal skill, and depended on the muscular development, the keenness of sight, and the cunning of the hand.’

The cunning of the hand, what farmworkers call maña, remains the basis of California farm work as surely as it is the basis of a major league pitcher’s job, or a skilled craftsman’s. Many farmworker jobs are not only hard to do but hard to learn, often requiring years to master, and skills typically are passed from one generation to the next. Farmworkers use hand tools: knives, hoes, clippers, pruners. They do not tend machines or have to keep up with an assembly line.”

In brief, “Behind every fruit and vegetable for sale in the supermarket lies an unknown world of toil and skill.” The rhetoric of “factory farming” and “industrial agriculture” is thus misleading to the extent that contemporary agriculture remains highly dependent on manual labor, although it is true that “planting and harvesting of so-called field crops—grains, sugar beets, and dry beans—have been successfully mechanized and deskilled. But field crops take up a rapidly diminishing percentage of California farm acreage….” Nassif appears to suggest (or his answer may be taken to at least imply) that the only obstacle to increased “mechanical harvesting and other robotic operations” is its comparatively high capital cost to all but the largest agricultural producers, but it remains the case that not all planting and harvesting is amenable to mechanization. Again, Bardacke:

“In the early sixties, when growers realized that the bracero program, thus their cheap labor supply, was coming to an end, they and their collaborators at the University of California began to build machines and remake seeds that they predicted would mechanize farmworkers out of existence. The project has been a colossal failure. Eighteen years of research and millions of dollars were thrown away on the lettuce machine alone. [….]

Each failed attempt has its own story. The strawberry machine bruised the berries. The asparagus machine couldn’t cut the shoots without destroying the ability of the bulb to generate more shoots for a later harvest. The celery machine couldn’t cut the stalks cleanly enough to be suitable for the fresh market. The lemon tree shaker produced three to seven times as much unmarketable fruit as did hand picking. Most other tree shakers do too much damage to the tree roots, although many nut trees can withstand the shaking. The one great mechanical success is the contraption that picks canning tomatoes, which, combined with a reengineered tomato, did replace thousands of workers. Otherwise, fresh tomatoes, like most other fruits and vegetables, are harvested by proficient workers making judgments and wielding tools. As the anthropologist Juan Vincent Palerm quipped about the growers’ dream of mechanization, ‘What we have witnessed over the past years is not the mechanization, but rather the ‘Mexicanization’ of California agriculture.”

Further reading and research:

César Chávez & the United Farm Workers … and the Struggle of Farm Workers in the U.S. — A Basic Bibliography
Beyond Capitalist Agribusiness: Toward Agroecology & Food Justice — A Basic Bibliography

2017-04-21T16:07:00.001-04:00

Several recent posts have focused on agriculture in Africa. I applaud those posts.

Today, I received an e-mail from the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND) that publicized its newest issue -- a special issue on biofortification of staple crops for Africa. I have done some legal work on the issue of biofortification of crops for developing nations. Hence, this issue caught my attention. I provide the AJFAND information for your information and use.

Drew Kershen
**********************************************************************************

From: Hon. Prof. Ruth Oniang'o [mailto:RKOniango@ruraloutreachafrica.org]

Sent: 20 April 2017 09:07

Subject: Announcing AJFAND Volume 17 No. 2 (2017) - Special Issue on Biofortification

AJFAND Logo

Special Issue devoted to Biofortification

Finally we are here. Let me right upfront express profound appreciation to Amy Saltzman, a researcher at HarvestPlus, who has worked tirelessly with the AJFAND team to ensure a smooth running of what turned out to be a fairly long process to the realization of this Special Issue on Biofortification. Dr Howarth Bouis (revered and popularly referred to as "Howdy") starting about 5 years ago was very keen to have AJFAND publish a Special Issue on Biofortification. Whenever we met, he or someone else on his Program Advisory Committee (PAC) would bring it up and my response would be "sure, just let me know when you are ready". Well, then exactly 2 years ago after we met at a conference in Switzerland, Dr Bouis forwarded the first set of manuscripts and we agreed that they go through internal review first before submitting to AJFAND. After all, the number of authors involved was large, and the group fairly diverse. I recall when I joined the very first PAC, of HarvestPlus, the first product we addressed was the orange fleshed sweet potato. That was years ago, in the early 1990’s. From 1993, Howdy was determined in his belief that biofortification could be a huge answer to world hunger and micronutrient deficiency problems; we watched him grey and I recall several times telling him: "One of these days, you will receive an award for this work you are doing". He would just smile. I am happy that it has finally come to pass. I remember when Dr Per Pinstrup Anderson called me to ask whether I could join the HarvestPlus PAC. He said: "Ruth, I am calling you from Washington DC. And you have to say YES, otherwise I will not get off the phone". Well, I had to agree. Dr Anderson was then the well- respected Director General of IFPRI and a good friend, and both his height and voice are always very convincing. That is one scientist I truly respect. This PAC, chaired by Dr Peter MacPherson, former USAID Administrator and past President of Michigan State University was an ambitious one but also extremely supportive of Howdy’s work. IFPRI too, the home of HarvestPlus demonstrated unwavering support and especially at times when no funding appeared to be forthcoming. Somehow all these people and many more believed in what Howdy was spearheading. Research takes time, but convincing many people to come along with you on something that is not yet tangible takes some skill and a lot of good luck. When you look at Howdy and listen to his story, it is difficult not to believe him. His determination and devotion to this cause has yielded fruits, real results. Yes, there is still a lot to do, but at least the foundation has been laid, and the proof of concept achieved. From 1993, to the present time, nearly 25 years, Africa has gone through many cycles of drought and hunger. As I write this, 17 million people are afflicted by famine in the Horn of Africa. The good thing about the orange fleshed sweet potato is its judicious use of water. So, it does better than many tubers in limited rainfall. This point was seriously emphasized at a recent CIP (International Potato Centre) meeting I attended in Kisumu.

It was amazing at the same meeting to learn of the multitude of products and especially snacks for both adults and children that can be made from orange and purple sweet potatoes.

This special issue of AJFAND has a lot to teach all of us: policy makers, researchers/scientists, farmers, donors, practitioners, consumers, private sector and job seekers. Patience pays, and together we can solve some of the world’s problems when we put our minds to it. I wish to congratulate all who have put effort for us to realize this issue, which can now be shared with interested parties across the world, and also to those who have devoted years of their professional careers to biofortification. Because of their unwavering resolve, billions of the world’s hungriest can access affordable food-based micronutrients.

Congratulations go to Dr Howarth Bouis and his team for receiving the 2016 World Food Prize, and we at AJFAND thank you so much for affording us the opportunity to publish this work. SCIENCE matters, and research is the mother of innovation, and all these efforts need to be supported, as it is the only way to address the ever increasing world problems. Hunger and malnutrition should be problems of the past in this 21st century.

I thank all AJFAND staff and reviewers for the mazing contributions they have made towards the finalization of this issue on BIOFORTIFICATION.

Enjoy this issue and forward all comments to:

Dr Amy Saltzman [ ajsaltzman.hp@gmail.com ] and Editor-in-Chief [ oniango@iconnect.co.ke ] for action.

Ruth Oniang’o
Editor-in-Chief, AJFAND
Foreword: Ruth Oniang'o
Profile: Howarth Bouis

Preface: Tumusiime Rhoda Peace

•Chapter 1:
An Overview of the landscape and approach for Biofortification in Africa
Howarth Bouis et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus01

Nutrition and Food Science

•Chapter 2:
Effect of regular consumption of provitamin A biofortified staple crops on Vitamin A status in populations in low-income countries.
Marjorie Haskell et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus02

•Chapter 3:
Efficacy of iron-biofortified crops.
Erick Boy et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus03

•Chapter 4:
Micronutrient (provitamin A and iron/zinc) retention in biofortified crops.
Aurelie Bechoff et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus04

Plant Breeding and Instrumentation

•Chapter 5:
Progress update: Crop development of biofortified staple food crops under HarvestPlus.
Meike Andersson et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus05

•Chapter 5: ANNEX 1
Biofortified varieties released under HarvestPlus (as of December 2016).
Chapter 5: Annex 1 DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus05.annex1

•Chapter 6:
High-throughput measurement methodologies for developing nutrient-dense crops.
Georgia Guild et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus06

Crop Development and Delivery Experience

•Chapter 7:
Sweet potato development and delivery in sub-Saharan Africa.
Jan Low et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus07

•Chapter 8:
Orange maize in Zambia: Crop development and delivery experience.
Eliab Simpungwe et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus08

•Chapter 9:
Vitamin A cassava in Nigeria: Crop development and delivery.
Paul Ilona et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus09

•Chapter 10:
Iron beans in Rwanda: Crop development and delivery experience.
Joseph Mulambu et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus10

•Chapter 11:
Marketing biofortified crops: insights from consumer research.
Benjamin Uchitelle-Pierce and Patience Ubomba-Jaswa DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus11

•Chapter 12:
Integrating biofortified crops into community development programs.
Carolyn MacDonald et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus12

Meauring Impact; Economic Methodologies

•Chapter 13:
Building the case for biofortification: Measuring and maximizing impact in the HarvestPlus program.
Nancy Johnson et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus13

•Chapter 14
Identification of optimal investments.
Keith Lividini et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus14

•Chapter 15:
Introducing orange sweet potato: Tracing the evolution of evidence on its effectiveness.
Alan de Brauw et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus15

Policy/Stakeholder Engagement

•Chapter 16:
Advocacy for biofortification: Building stakeholder support, integration into regional and national policies, and sustaining momentum.
Namukolo Covic et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus16

•Chapter 17:
The way forward.
Howarth Bouis et al. DOI: 10.18697/ajfand.HarvestPlus17

##################################################

Hon. Prof. Ruth K. Oniang'o, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND)
Founder, Rural Outreach Program (ROP) Africa
Chair of Boards, SAA/SAFE
President, International Academy of Food Science and Technology (IAFoST) 2016-2018
2014 IFAMA Distinguished Service Award Recipient
2014 FORTUNE Magazine one of 30 Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink
Adjunct Professor of Nutrition, TUFTS University, USA

CONTACTS:
9 Planets Apartments, Block S6
Kabarnet Gardens, Off Kabarnet Road [Off Ngong Road]
P.O. Box 29086-00625 Nairobi, KENYA Cellphone: +254-703 113995

Alternative Contacts:
+254 722 406955 +254 722 809074
Email: RKOniango@ruraloutreachafrica.org
Email: oniango@iconnect.co.ke
Website: www.ropafrica.org AND www.ajfand.net

Ruling finds California’s largest fruit grower collectively bargained in bad faith with the UFW

2017-04-18T17:29:00.000-04:00

[Apologia: I realize all agriculture-newsworthy items don’t originate from California, but as I live in the state and our other bloggers are quiescent at the moment, I trust you can forgive me. And yet we might recall that California is ‘positioned as the agricultural powerhouse of the United States,’ as it ‘leads all of the other states in farm income!’]

“Judge slams fruit grower over ‘bad faith’ bargaining with farmworkers”

By Geoffrey Mohan for the Los Angeles Times, April 17, 2017

The state’s largest grower of peaches and other fruit bargained in bad faith with the United Farm Workers of America and wrongly tried to exclude as many as 1,500 employees from a collective bargaining agreement, a judge has ruled. The decision gives a strong boost to the UFW’s claim to represent as many as 6,500 workers at Gerawan Farming Inc., a 12,000-acre farm and packing operation in the San Joaquin Valley that has been the focal point of one of the longest-running and most acrimonious labor dispute in decades. The decision also reaffirms that employees of labor contractors, who now provide about half the workers who pick the state’s crops, are covered by union contracts signed with the grower.

The Gerawan-UFW fight, which began in the early 1990s, has sparked the single largest effort to decertify a union, along with a flurry of labor board and court decisions, including one that has stalled the state’s ability to impose a contract on warring parties. And these parties have been at war, Administrative Law Judge William L. Schmidt acknowledged in a decision issued Friday.

Co-owner Dan Gerawan’s undisguised anger with the union, Schmidt wrote, ‘appears deep and unusually long-lasting,’ and ‘perhaps explains the motive underlying the current expenditure of what must have been enormous sums by the Gerawan enterprises opposing the UFW and seeking to rid itself of any legal obligation to deal with that organization.’ Gerawan showed ‘at most, a lackadaisical attitude … and at worst, complete hostility’ and ‘almost certainly guaranteed’ a mediator would have to step in and impose a contract in 2013, Schmidt wrote.

Armando Elenes, a spokesman for the UFW, said the decision ‘confirms what we’ve been saying all along — Gerawan has been undermining the law. They’re trying to undermine the state of California.’

Gerawan’s lead attorney, David Schwarz, blasted the decision and promised an appeal — none of the previous decisions in the case has gone without appeals from the growers and the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. ‘Gerawan is confident that these undemocratic decisions will not stand, and will challenge this latest erroneous ruling,’ Schwarz said Monday. He accused the judge of blaming the grower for the union’s ‘unexplained, 17-year absence’ from Gerawan’s fields.

Schmidt’s ruling appears to undermine Gerawan’s assertion that the union abandoned his workers in the mid-1990s before returning in 2012 to demand the right to negotiate a new contract. Gerawan has argued that UFW was solely looking to pad its membership and coffers — it collects dues of 3% of each member’s gross pay — by deliberately running out the clock on negotiations so it could obtain a contract imposed by a mediator. [….]

The rest of the article is here.

“African Arguments” series from Zed Books

2017-04-17T09:10:00.001-04:00

This series of titles from Zed Books has several volumes directly and indirectly relevant to questions in international political economy and agriculture, should anyone be interested. I have a post with a bit more information over at Ratio Juris. [Please note: I am not being paid by Zed Books, I did not receive a (or any) free book(s) from the publisher, and I was not asked to promote the series.]

Agricultural Labor & Affluent Consumers: Cacao Farming, Commodities, and Consumption

2017-04-14T09:38:00.000-04:00

Drying cocoa beans in rural Ghana (Photo: Elke de Buh)

“Before you eat that chocolate Easter egg, think about the people who produced it”

By Simran Sethi for the Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2017

“Just after Valentine’s Day, prices for cocoa plummeted. Days later, media outlets erupted in a collective hurrah. ‘Your chocolate is getting cheaper,’ headlines proclaimed. ‘Easter will be sweet.’ What wasn’t factored into the celebration is the deep suffering of the subsistence farmers who grow cacao, the seeds of a pod-shaped fruit that, once harvested, become the cocoa traded on the commodities market and destined for the chocolate eggs and bunnies that fill most Easter baskets.

Cacao’s origins trace to the rainforests of the upper Amazon, and the seeds are believed to have been transformed into a drink in Mesoamerica at least as early as 400 BC. Once used as medicine, currency and a stand-in for human blood during rituals, today cacao — cocoa — is dried, fermented and roasted to become the foundation of the $100-billion chocolate industry. The trees grow in a tropical band 20 degrees north and south of the equator, with 70% of production based in West Africa and centered in Ivory Coast.

Despite the success of the chocolate (and confection) industries, 90% of cocoa farmers operate at the margins. A recent study by the French Development Agency and Barry Callebaut (the world’s largest cocoa manufacturer) determined farmers in Ivory Coast earn roughly 91 cents a day. Imagine what it means for those farmers when the price they receive for the fruits of their labor drops — as it has recently — by 33%.

This decline in commodity cocoa prices over the past year is the result of several factors, including predictions that consumers in China and India would develop an insatiable appetite for chocolate. Consumption has increased in these countries but not at forecasted levels. And globally, demand has remained largely unchanged. But farmers haven’t been able to slow production: They had already planted more trees in anticipation of increased demand and that, coupled with good weather in most of Ivory Coast’s cocoa-growing regions, bolstered the harvest and has resulted in a bumper crop and oversupply.

Because there is no global agreement ensuring farmers a base price for cocoa, the farmers are vulnerable to every market shift. However, local governments can and do set parameters for the crop. In 2016, the Ivorian regulator Conseil du Cafe-Cacao set a minimum price of 1,100 Central African francs per kilogram, roughly 81 cents per pound, and also helped farmers contract with exporters to buy the early 2017 crop. But that was last July, when the market price of cocoa was significantly higher; many exporters have since defaulted on their commitments. Although officials say they’ve resold the defaulted contracts, last week Ivory Coast’s minimum price guaranteed to farmers was cut by almost 40%.

Adding to this challenge are reports that the new crop will be abundant. (It is a perverse fact of economics that high yields contribute to an increased supply that results in lower prices for farmers.) And with new plantings continuing to mature (it takes three to five years for a new tree to produce cocoa), the glut is expected to grow larger in years to come.

If farmers can’t earn a living from cocoa, they will grow other crops or seek out different employment. If the shift is widespread, it may decrease the diversity of cocoa, affect the development of the crop and ultimately make cocoa harder to get and more expensive for chocolate lovers and chocolate makers.

For consumers, the solution is a tasty one: Eat more chocolate. But not just any chocolate. At no other moment in history has information on farmers, cocoa prices and the chocolate industry been so readily available — investigate and choose wisely.

To support cocoa farmers, look for chocolate that contains more cocoa. (In the United States, a candy bar has to contain only 10% cocoa to be legally identified as chocolate.) Pay attention to the story on the label. Certifications indicate a range of social, economic and environmental initiatives to sustain cocoa production. Origin designations seek to highlight different flavors found in the regions where cocoa is grown.

If you put your money where your mouth is and buy craft, or specialty, chocolate, you’re underwriting makers who may be trading directly with farmers. Craft chocolate costs more than what’s mass-produced because its makers are committed to raising the profile of quality cocoa, and they pay a premium for the crop.

Go ahead, bite into that chocolate Easter bunny. But consider the people whose labor supplied the raw material that makes it taste so good.” The entire article is here.

(Simran Sethi is the author of Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love and the creator of the chocolate podcast ‘The Slow Melt.’)

Further Reading:

Barclay, Eliza. “Why The World Might Be Running Out Of Cocoa Farmers,” NPR, July 3, 2015.
Clarence-Smith, William Gervase. Cocoa and Chocolate, 1765-1914. New York: Routledge, 2000.
“Cocoa bean,” Wikipedia entry.
Mintz, Sidney W. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin Books, 1986 (1985).
Off, Carol. Bitter Chocolate: Anatomy of an Industry. New York: The New Press, 2006.
Ryan, Órla. Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa. London: Zed Books, 2011.
Wessel, Marius and P.M. Foluke Quist-Wessel. “Cocoa production in West Africa, a review and analysis of recent developments,” NJAS – Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, Vols. 74–75, December 2015: 1–7.

Toward Agroecology & Food Justice

2017-04-07T09:55:00.000-04:00

I’ve made a fair amount of additions to this bibliography: The Sullied Science & Political Economy of Hyper-Industrial Agriculture (Or: ‘Toward Agroecology & Food Justice’). In a future post at the Agricultural Law blog I aim to provide an introduction to agroecology, providing several definitions as well as references (online and otherwise) to some of the best (assessed by my lights) literature on the subject. At its best, agroecology is in part utopian (in a non-pejorative sense) insofar as it embraces concerns with “food sovereignty” and “food justice” (and social justice generally) while attempting to transform—or at least enlist—contemporary science and technology into—or on behalf of—emancipatory tools for “the people,” that is, something intrinsically tied to (participatory and representative) democratic principles, values, and practices no longer deformed, distorted, or trumped by capitalist imperatives. (If one cannot imagine agriculture ‘beyond capitalism’ agroecology will be dismissed as merely ideological or even nonsensical). It is also “utopian” in the sense that it aims to be interdisciplinary with respect to both the natural and social sciences. More on this anon.

U.S. Agricultural Policy in the World Economy

2017-04-06T01:23:00.004-04:00

In the hope of arousing abiding interest among those who’ve yet to read this work, what follows is from the informative if not provocative Foreword by James C. Scott to Bill Winders’ The Politics of Food Supply: U.S. Agricultural Policy in the World Economy (Yale University Press, 2009):

“The task Bill Winders sets himself is sharply etched but, at the same time, dauntingly ambitious. How can one account for the demise of the trinity of production controls, price supports, and export subsidies that guided agricultural policy in the United States for more than a half century from the New Deal to the mid-1990s? The bookends of this enterprise are Franklin Roosevelt’s Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA, 1933), which instituted supply management, and the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act (FAIR Act, 1996), which abandoned it. Explaining this convincingly, as Winder does, requires a high order of interdisciplinary skills, including a firm grasp of partisan congressional politics, of agrarian movements throughout the country, of international trade, and of economic history. [….]

In place of explanations that have relied largely upon the vagaries of partisan politics and commodity prices to explain major policy shifts, Winders substitutes a particularly sophisticated version of class and sectoral politics. The three crops—corn, cotton, and wheat; those who grow them, market them, and buy them; and above all, those whose political futures depend upon keeping each crop’s constituents content, are the key actors in Winders’s drama. Each crop is distinctive in its geographical location, its class and ownership structure, its markets, and its political clout. The constituents each have different political interests, which, furthermore, shift over time. The coalitions they forge and dissolve, Winders argues, form the most reliable weather vane indicating the probable direction of agricultural policy.

The historical dialectic that Winder traces among the constituents for the various crops, the policy outcomes, and the resulting shifts in the structure and interests of the growers and sellers of each crop is what gives his analysis its dynamic quality. In a discerning version of the adage ‘be careful what you wish for,’ Winders shows how a policy ‘victory’ by, say, the growers of cotton or corn serves, in unanticipated ways, to transform their very structures, interests, and sway. The logic is worked out to great effect in the southern cotton sector. There, in a setting where serfdom, in the form of share-tenancy, had replaced slavery, landlords seized for themselves alone the crop payments mandated by the AAA. When they were required by law to share these payments with tenants, landlords responded by dismissing the tenants, moving to more capital-intensive production, and diversifying into growing soybeans and feed grains and raising livestock. This, in turn, helped touch off the great migration north by poor rural blacks and whites, setting the stage for the cotton lobby’s decline and facilitating the civil rights movement. Eventually, the demise of the one-party South broke the seniority-based death grip southerners had exercised on congressional democrats since the Civil War. Recursive, dialectical analysis of this kind seems, in my view, to offer the most promising way forward for otherwise wooden and static class analysis. It also helps explain why the one genuine attempt at land reform to break the back of (largely) racialized peonage in the cotton South failed. FDR’s agrarian reformers—Rexford Tugwell, Jerome Frank, and ‘Pat’ Jackson—were, to use a contemporary expression, ‘thrown under the bus’ when the full congressional power of the southern planters was brought to bear on the New Deal. Just as post-Civil War Republican Reconstruction was undone by white planters, so was DFR’s post-Depression plan for a reconstructed and more equitable agrarian South undone by much the same forces. [….]

Winders understands, as did Polanyi, than no one, save a handful of theorists, loves perfect competition. The ultimate goal of all producers and wholesalers is some form of oligopoly or monopoly that allows price fixing. Producers understand that the more ‘perfect’ the competition becomes, the closer the rate of profit approaches to zero. The coveted shelter from ‘cut-throat’ competition is, short of natural monopolies, available to small-scale producers only through political influence. North American cotton and wheat growers have for some time, in international markets, been price-takers rather than price-givers and hence have sought protection. Corn, on the other hand, because the United States is the dominant world exporter and because core is an ‘input’ feed grain for foreign and domestic livestock rearing, has generated a far more complex set of interests. At any event, the representatives of agrarian producers have generally sough precisely what Boeing, Chrysler, Harley-Davidson, and Bear Stearns have sought: to privatize profits and socialize losses. When prices were buoyant, the pressure for price and export subsidies diminished, and when prices plummeted, the political clamor for subsidies grew. Whether the producers had the political clout to legislate their profit insurance is a large part of Winders’s story, but what has never been in doubt, following Polanyi, is their desire to be politically sheltered from a tumultuous market.

[….] Surely, it is curious that, from at least the New Deal forward, U.S. agricultural policy has primarily centered on price supports for the major commodities: corn, cotton, wheat, tobacco, soybeans, milk, etc. That is, the place occupied in other countries by a rural policy has been usurped in the United States by commodity policy. Why this should be so is both intriguing and complex. One might argue that the early ambitions of the Tennessee Valley Authority were the embryonic beginnings—alas stillborn—of a genuine rural policy. After this failure, the issue of price supports dominated agrarian politics in Washington. Where the French, the Danes, the Germans, and the Norwegians have asked themselves what kinds of rural communities they wish to promote, what the rural landscape should look like, what land uses should be encouraged, and what rural services should be publicly provided, Americans have seldom posed such questions, let alone addressed them until very recently. Until they are addressed, we may have a wheat or corn policy but nothing that remotely resembles an agricultural, let alone a rural, policy.”

Professor Winders’ latest book is Grains (Polity Press, 2017).

The Moral & Political Economy of Poverty, Hunger, and Famine

2017-04-03T14:45:00.000-04:00

Perhaps some readers of this blog may be interested in a “suggested reading” list on the moral and political economy of poverty, hunger, and famine, cross-posted at Ratio Juris & Religious Left Law.

César E. Chávez: March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993

2017-03-31T11:00:00.000-04:00

My bibliography for César Chávez & the United Farm Workers … and the Struggle of Farm Workers in the U.S. is here.

NAFTA & Agriculture: Rhetoric, Posturing, Reality

2017-03-31T09:50:00.003-04:00

Protesters in Mexico City hand out corn to workers and farmers in a march against spiraling food prices in 2007. Luis Acosta/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“Mexico’s bargaining chips with Trump: how about a corn boycott?”

By Kate Linthicum for the Los Angeles Times, March 29, 2017

“First domesticated here 10,000 years ago, corn is not only a staple of the Mexican diet, but also a symbol of Mexico itself. Since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, it has also become a symbol of Mexico’s growing economic dependence on the United States. Now, as President Trump threatens Mexico with drastic changes on trade, its leaders are wielding corn as a weapon. Mexico’s Senate is considering legislation calling for a boycott of U.S. corn, and the government has begun negotiating with Argentina and Brazil to import corn from those nations tax-free.

The threat of a boycott is Mexico’s latest and perhaps cleverest attempt to fight back against Trump, whose threats to pull out of free trade agreements and slap a 20% import tax on Mexican products have shaken confidence in Mexico’s economy.

Mexico, which exported surplus corn as recently as the early 1980s, now buys a third of the corn it consumes from the United States. Last year, it purchased $2.5 billion worth of corn from Iowa, Nebraska and other states, making Mexico the largest corn export market for U.S. farmers. Trump points to a roughly $60-billion trade deficit in Mexico’s favor as justification for a major overhaul of one of the United States’ most important and historically stable trading partnerships.

Organizers of the boycott say their goal is to highlight how much certain U.S. sectors depend on that relationship. ‘Trump says Mexico takes advantage of the U.S.,’ said Mexican Sen. Armando Rios Piter, who introduced the legislation last month after being inspired by a group of Mexican American immigrant rights activists calling for a boycott. ‘We need to make it clear how much many states win from trade with Mexico,’ said Rios, a member of the left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party. ‘It’s important that people in the Midwest know what Mexico means to them.’

Analysts say that although the proposed boycott is unlikely to pass, it is a deft political move because its biggest effects would be felt in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and other states that voted for Trump in last year’s presidential election.

For now, U.S. farmers have a clear advantage over South American sellers, thanks to proximity and a logistics system built up over decades, plus duty-free access that gives the U.S. an additional edge on prices. But elected leaders and agriculture advocacy groups in those states are now on high alert. Tom Sleight, chief executive of the U.S. Grains Council, said he was worried about a shift in Mexican corn purchases, noting that Mexican customers who met with him this month were upset with the tone of NAFTA renegotiations. ‘They want to keep it business as usual, but there’s consistent talk about a Plan B,’ he said.

In private meetings with Trump’s trade officials and in public settings, lawmakers have repeatedly warned about the potential harm to U.S. farmers should Mexico move to diversify grain imports by buying from suppliers in South America or other markets. ‘I can’t stress enough that there will be real and immediate economic consequences for farmers if we lose exports,’ Charles E. Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa, said at a confirmation hearing this month on Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s nominee for the U.S. trade representative.” [….]

The rest of this article in the Los Angeles Times is here.

Update: Two days later, the Times is reporting that there is presumptive evidence for the belief that the Trump administration is backing away from its earlier positions about trade with Mexico:

“Far from the sweeping trade overhaul that Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail, his administration is considering a surprisingly modest revamp of the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to a draft letter provided to Congress. The objectives outlined would bolster Trump’s emphasis on ‘Buy American,’ including giving greater preferences for U.S. companies in government procurement.

But the draft includes none of the harsh, punitive measures or steep tariffs he once threatened against Mexico. Neither does it crack down on currency manipulation or weak labor regulations, things critics of free trade in particular have long sought. The relatively minor changes to NAFTA would be a far cry from Trump’s campaign promise to dramatically reshape or withdraw from what he repeatedly called one of the worst deals ever negotiated by the U.S.

Ironically, the draft also incorporates many of the elements in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade deal negotiated by President Obama that Trump also trashed and formally withdrew from shortly after he took office. John Veroneau, a trade lawyer in Washington and former deputy U.S. trade representative in the George W. Bush administration, said the draft hardly qualifies as ‘protectionist and the first shots of a trade war. People may take issue with different items in the letter, but there’s nothing alarmist or unconventional about it.’

If the draft is adopted, its approach toward NAFTA would mark a political victory for a pro-free-trade faction that has been rising inside the Trump administration, led by former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, now Trump’s top economic advisor. He and others have been seeking to temper the more protectionist policies articulated during the campaign.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer downplayed the significance of the draft, saying it was ‘not a statement of administration policy. That is not an accurate assessment of where we are at this time.’ Spicer suggested that there would be substantial changes in the letter after Trump’s nominee for U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, is confirmed by the Senate.” [….]

The rest of this article is here.

The political economy of California agriculture

2017-03-21T18:32:00.000-04:00

“Wages rise on California farms. Americans still don’t want the job.”

Trump’s immigration crackdown is supposed to help U.S. citizens. For California farmers, it’s worsening a desperate labor shortage.

By Natalie Kitroeff and Geoffrey Mohan for the Los Angeles Times, March 17, 2017

[….] The flow of labor began drying up when President Obama tightened the border. Now President Trump is promising to deport more people, raid more companies and build a wall on the southern border. That has made California farms a proving ground for the Trump team’s theory that by cutting off the flow of immigrants they will free up more jobs for American-born workers and push up their wages. So far, the results aren’t encouraging for farmers or domestic workers.

Farmers are being forced to make difficult choices about whether to abandon some of the state’s hallmark fruits and vegetables, move operations abroad, import workers under a special visa or replace them altogether with machines. Growers who can afford it have already begun raising worker pay well beyond minimum wage. Wages for crop production in California increased by 13% from 2010 to 2015, twice as fast as average pay in the state, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Today, farmworkers in the state earn about $30,000 a year if they work full time — about half the overall average pay in California. Most work fewer hours. Some farmers are even giving laborers benefits normally reserved for white-collar professionals, like 401(k) plans, health insurance, subsidized housing and profit-sharing bonuses. Full-timers at Silverado Farming, for example, get most of those sweeteners, plus 10 paid vacation days, eight paid holidays, and can earn their hourly rate to take English classes.

But the raises and new perks have not tempted native-born Americans to leave their day jobs for the fields. Nine in 10 agriculture workers in California are still foreign born, and more than half are undocumented, according to a federal survey. [….]

‘The law of supply and demand doesn’t stop being true just because you’re talking about people,’ says George Borjas, a Harvard economist and prominent foe of unfettered immigration. ‘[Farmers] have had an almost endless supply of low-skill workers for a long time, and now they are finding it difficult to transition to a situation where they don’t.’

Borjas believes the ones who reap the rewards of immigration are employers — not just farmers, but restaurant owners and well-to-do homeowners who hire landscapers and housekeepers. The people who suffer most are American workers, who contend with more competition for jobs and lower pay.

But Silverado, the farm labor contracting company in Napa, has never had a white, American-born person take an entry-level gig, even after the company increased hourly wages to $4 above the minimum. And Silverado is far from unique.

U.S. workers filled just 2% of a sample of farm labor vacancies advertised in 1996, according to a report published by the Labor Department’s office of inspector general. ‘I don’t think anybody would dispute that that’s roughly the way it is now’ as well, says Philip Martin, an economist at UC Davis and one of the country’s leading experts on agriculture. [….]

The full article, with wonderful photographs, is here.

David A. Cleveland’s Balancing on a Planet: The Future of Food and Agriculture (2014)

2017-03-10T11:08:00.002-05:00

Below is a substantial excerpt from the Introduction to David A. Cleveland’s Balancing on a Planet: The Future of Food and Agriculture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2014). I hope it entices you to read the book, for while I have yet to finish, what I have read thus far and what I’ve peeked at in what’s to come, is very good. In brief—and for what it’s worth—I highly recommend it. Cleveland is Professor of Environmental Studies and Geography at my alma mater, the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), although I’ve never taken a course from him nor do I personally know him. (I have left out the embedded references for the notes.)

“The mainstream industrial agrifood system has been remarkably successful over the long run in increasing food production at a rate faster than population growth, with the promise of continuing to do so in the immediate future. Supporters of this system believe that a globally integrated agrifood system and technological breakthroughs, for example in genetic engineering of crop plants or precision agriculture, are key to providing enough food for the future. Advocates of alternative agrifood systems have a different perspective—they argue that the demand can be lowered via better diets and reduction of waste, and that supply can be increased in more sustainable ways, with ecological agricultural based on traditional methods and more local control. But the issue is far from settled, and it hinges on disagreement over values as well as facts. A major problem from an alternative perspective is that the mainstream agrifood system monopolizes the bulk of research and development resources, leaving little opportunity for developing the kinds of solutions needed to save the planet, nurture communities, and increase human happiness.

Yet, regardless of one’s perspective, there is also shockingly bad news about every element of our agrifood systems—from the contamination of drinking water with agricultural chemicals to the deteriorating nutritional quality of the food supply and of child nutritional status, from the loss of crop genetic resources to loss of prime farmland. It seems that our agrifood system has been going in a direction that is producing at least as many problems as solutions. While those in power have demanded more food and higher yields to maintain and expand their power for millennia, pushing farmers into practices that were environmentally and socially destructive, their effects were mostly localized. Today, however, we have a global system, highly degraded environments, and more than seven billion humans to feed, with one billion of those chronically hungry.

In order to move toward a more desirable future, we need to understand the successes and failures of our and current agrifood systems and how they are linked in time and space. We also need to agree on how to define the future and on how we need to change our current system to get there. [….]

I have two main goals for this book. The first is to encourage critical thinking by explaining the concepts that I think are key to understanding the problems and potential solutions for the challenges facing our agrifood systems. This includes demonstrating how these concepts can be applied to specific situations so that readers can use them to analyze new situations and discuss their findings with others. [….] My second main goal is to demonstrate how I have applied these concepts in my own thinking about agrifood systems; I share what I have concluded about the problems and solutions based on my own research and values. These two goals are synergistic in that if I achieve the first, it means that readers will be able to independently critique my application of the concepts and my conclusions. [….]

Cleveland proceeds to explain why and how critical thinking is essential to the goals of his book, one consequence of which is that he endeavors

“to present as openly as possible [his] own conclusions and assumptions while also standing back and viewing them critically—that is, not becoming too attached to them and remaining open to new data, to alternative interpretations of data, and to appreciating different values. For example, my values include the assumptions that equity of resource access and use for all people is good and that interacting with the biophysical world in ways that maintain high biological and cultural diversity and ecosystem functioning is good, and my analysis of the data leads me to empirical assumptions that anthropogenic climate change is a real and immense threat and that small-scale, resource-poor farmers’ behaviors are often base on insightful and efficacious understanding of their environment and crops. [….]

I have worked with farmers, gardeners, and scientists on research and development projects in northeast Ghana; in the Swabi valley in Pakistan; in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico; and in the United States, on the Zuni and Hopi reservations and in Santa Barbara County, California. In addition, I have spent shorter periods of time researching agrifood systems in other places, including Burkina Faso, Egypt, India, Syria, Mali, and China. I have interviewed and collected observational data, in addition to studying the research of others. [….]

One of my central conclusions is that small-scale, traditional, locally oriented, low –external-input agrifood systems are an important resource for the future. Much of the Earth’s remaining cultural and biological diversity is in the care of small-scale farmers. Many of the farmers I have worked with use knowledge and methods passed on through generations to grow locally adapted crop varieties, evaluating and incorporating new ideas from other farming traditions, from extension agents, and from scientists. I have celebrated with them their successful harvests and eaten special foods made from those harvests, rich with history, meaning, and flavor.

These farmers are often proud of what they do and know, and while they seek improvements in their farming and their lives in general, most do not want to abandon those things they value about their way of life. For example, in Oaxaca, Mexico, when farmers were asked as part of our research on crop diversity if they wanted their children to be maize and bean farmers like themselves, 91 percent said ‘yes.’ However, these same farmers see the world changing rapidly from the traditions of the many generations that preceded them—only 47 percent thought their children would actually grow up to be maize and bean farmers.

I have also seen farmers struggle to feed themselves and to understand the forces seemingly beyond their control that make the survival of their agrifood system almost impossible—population growth; environmental degradation; climate change; market fluctuations; privatization of water, land, and other resources; inappropriate development projects; and corrupt and incompetent governments and development organizations at home and abroad. [….]

While I see much potential in small-scale agriculture for solving the world food crises, I am also aware that small-scale farming is often physically and mentally grueling, and that most farmers are not well rewarded for their work. According to one estimate, the more than two billion people living on almost five hundred million small-scale (less than 2-ha) farms in the Third World include half of the world’s undernourished people and the majority living in absolute poverty. In short, I am not a nostalgic romantic. There is no going back to the small-scale agriculture of the past—doing so would neither be neither possible nor desirable. It was often a very hard life, and the world is a different place now, with more than seven billion humans to support. But simply continuing to promote the mainstream agrifood system is not the answer either.

I believe that an important aspect of creating alternatives for the future will be to combine small-scale, traditional agriculture with select aspects of modern, scientific agriculture in ways that provide solutions to the current food crisis—long-term solutions to balancing our biological need for food with our environmental impact in ways that also fulfill our cultural, social, and psychological needs. [....] ... [T]here are usually trade-offs between what is possible and our goals for the future, and also between the different goals we have for the future. We need to minimize these trade-offs, to look for ways to make the system work better for everyone. We need to think critically, holistically, systematically, and compassionately. And we need to get to work right away.” [....]

California’s chronic water shortage does not bode well for its agriculture

2017-03-07T10:31:00.001-05:00

“Our wild, wet winter doesn’t change this reality —California will be short of water forever”

By Jay Famiglietti and Michelle Miro* for the Los Angeles Times, March 7, 2017

[….] All winter, Californians have been asking one question: Is the drought finally over? The federal monitor shows just a few lingering tan and yellow patches in Southern California, but for scientists, the beginning and end of drought conditions are exceptionally difficult to pinpoint. Still, after only a few more serious encounters with the ‘Pineapple Express,’ Gov. Jerry Brown may well declare the state’s 3-year drought emergency over.

Which leads us to the second most frequently asked question of this unusually wet winter: What’s our water future? The answer has been clear for a while: It’s going to be a lot like our water past, but more so — California is, was and will be chronically water short.

The drought has underlined three important realities that aren’t going to change. First, the way municipalities use water can be sustainable, even as their population grows, as long as they embrace conservation, water recycling and reuse, and a diverse portfolio of management options. However, agricultural water use at today’s scale in California is not sustainable. Agriculture is literally sucking the state dry.

Food production requires nearly unfathomable volumes of water, and has resulted in the long-term decline of the total available fresh water in California. The great thirst of our highly productive agricultural sector has never been and will never be satisfied by the annual winter storms that feed the state’s rivers and reservoirs. The shortfall is met by pumping groundwater at rates that greatly exceed those of replenishment. As a result, groundwater levels in much of the state, including the once-vast reserves beneath the Central Valley, have been declining for nearly a century.

It is essential to understand that wet winters like the current one will not reverse this long-term decline. Historically, even the wettest multiyear periods result in only a modest uptick in the otherwise steady loss of Central Valley groundwater. Consequently, agriculture in California has to adapt to this dwindling supply. Farmers and ranchers will face more of the kinds of difficult decisions the drought has already forced, such as fallowing fields as groundwater levels drop, or worse, taking land out of production. [emphasis added]

Next, we must recognize that the classic definition of water as a sustainable resource — that is, using only the surface and groundwater available on an annual, renewable basis — is no longer tenable for the entire state. Instead, water sustainability in California must now refer to efforts to slow the rate of disappearance of the state’s groundwater reserves.

The landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, passed in 2014 in Sacramento, acknowledges and confronts the declining availability of fresh water in California. Its requirements, however, will never result in the recovery of statewide groundwater levels, even if important efforts to enhance groundwater recharge and construct additional storage are pursued.

Finally, it is simply impossible to effectively plan for California’s water future without knowing a lot more about how much water the state has, how much it needs and how these amounts are changing with time. [….] The entire article is here.

* Jay Famiglietti is a hydrologist and former professor of Earth system science and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Irvine. Michelle Miro is a hydrologist and doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering at UCLA.

Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images

Recommended Reading:

Carle, David. Introduction to Water in California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2^nd ed., 2016.
Ingram, B. Lynn and Frances Malamud Roam. The West without Water… . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013.
Reisner, Marc. Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water. New York: Penguin Books, revised ed. 1993 (1986).
Wilkinson, Charles F. Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water, and the Future of the West. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1992.
Worster, Donald. Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.

An “agrihood” in Detroit (an exemplum of the agroecological utopian praxis of ‘democratization from below’)

2017-02-23T08:47:00.000-05:00

A FB friend shared this encouraging news item on inhabitat from last year about the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative: “America’s first urban ‘agrihood’ feeds 2,000 households for free:”

“When you think of Detroit, ‘sustainable‘ and ‘agriculture‘ may not be the first two words that you think of. But a new urban agrihood debuted by The Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI) might change your mind. The three-acre development boasts a two-acre garden, a fruit orchard with 200 trees, and a sensory garden for kids.

If you need a refresher on the definition of agrihood, MUFI describes it as an alternative neighborhood growth model. An agrihood centers around urban agriculture, and MUFI offers fresh, local produce to around 2,000 households for free.”

From MUFI’s website:

“The Michigan Urban Farming Initiative is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that seeks to engage members of the Michigan community in sustainable agriculture. We believe that challenges unique to the Michigan community (e.g., vacant land, poor diet, nutritional illiteracy, and food insecurity) present a unique opportunity for community-supported agriculture. Using agriculture as a platform to promote education, sustainability, and community—while simultaneously reducing socioeconomic disparity—we hope to empower urban communities.

Our primary focus is the redevelopment of a two-square-block area in Detroit’s North End, which is being positioned as an epicenter of urban agriculture. This space is heavily themed by ‘adaptive reuse of the built-environment’ in which we are hoping to demonstrate everything from Best practices for sustainable urban agriculture, Effective strategies for increasing food security, cost-competitive and scalable models for blight deconstruction, and Innovation in Blue & Green infrastructure.”