Farmworker Justice

Hey everyone!!

When I think of farming, I immediately think of the people behind all the food—not the businesses that market and sell the food, but all the people who actually plant, grow, cultivate, harvest, and package our food. I wasn’t always this way. Like most people, I was pretty ignorant when it came to looking past the surface level of our farming and agriculture systems. Amy touched upon this topic in her Week 4 farm blog post, however, with my portion of the class on Thursday, I hope to delve deeper into issues of farmworker justice.

Currently, I work at Farmworker Legal Services, which is a legal aid office in Kalamazoo that provides free legal assistance to migrant and seasonal farmworkers throughout the state of Michigan (http://www.farmworkerlaw.org/ and https://www.farmworkerjustice.org/ ). My work at FLS has opened my eyes to the population of migrant farmworkers in Michigan and has given me a passion for legal advocacy of this population. I grew up in Michigan, but not anywhere near farmland, so I had no clue that Michigan has one of the highest populations of migrant farmworkers outside of the Southwest and North Carolina. I have learned so much about this population of people over the last year, yet I am consistently surprised at how deplorable their working and living conditions are.

For class Thursday, I found a documentary called “Harvest of Dignity.” It is in response to a documentary made and released in the 1960’s called “Harvest of Shame,” about the examination of the plight of migrant farmworkers in the United States. It was the first time millions of Americans were given a look into what it means to live in poverty. “Harvest of Dignity” was created in North Carolina in 2011 by Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF) and the Farmworker Advocacy Network (FAN) to show that farmworker conditions have remained stagnant since the original documentary aired in the 60’s. I’ve provided both links in case you are curious about the original documentary.

http://www.pbs.org/video/unc-tv-presents-harvest-dignity/ --Harvest of Dignity (26 minutes)

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/1960-harvest-of-shame/ --Harvest of Shame (52 minutes)

This is an interview with Dr. Seth Holmes, a medical anthropologist and author of “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies, Migrant Farmworkers in the United States.” In order to bring new insights into this marginalized population, he became a farmworker himself. For two years he spent summers working with farmworkers in Washington and California. He then later moved to Oaxaca, Mexico and lived with the workers there, while documenting the physical toll that the farm work took on the laborers’ health. I have also included the link to his TEDx Talk if you want to learn more about Dr. Holmes and the work he has done with this population.

http://kvpr.org/post/author-interview-seth-holmes-talks-about-farmworkers-broken-bodies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTS9FdddXDY

Here are some questions to ponder in your responses:

1.     Has the treatment of farmworkers ever impacted any of your purchases in the past? Do you think you feel more inclined to inquire about farmers’ treatment of their farmworkers?

2.     How does our food and agriculture system perpetuate racism and oppression in the United States?

3.     What possible solutions can you imagine in order to achieve farmworker justice? How could these solutions affect food production/consumption? How could slow farming assist in achieving farmworker justice?

Week 5 on the Farm: To Till or Not to Till

Weather Forecast: Tuesday, high of 80 degrees F; Wednesday, high of 76 degrees F, scattered thunderstorms.

Hmm, it seems like we are in fact jumping right from Winter into Summer this week! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy it's not snowing, but we need a window of moderately cool weather for our Spring crops like lettuce and spinach to thrive. So, my fingers are crossed that after the rain comes in mid-week, the temperatures will drop back down into a normal range for early May. While you are on the farm this week, though, please remember to protect yourselves from the sun in whatever way you prefer to do that (sunscreen, long sleeves, etc.) and to drink lots of water!

John and I will be scrambling this week to get plants in the ground, beds prepared, holistic sprays on the fruit trees, and our final pruning cuts made before the rains move in. We'll be direct seeding beets and salad greens and transplanting kale, chard, broccoli and onions. We'll have you help us out with the planting and transplanting, weather permitting.

One of the beds we'll be planting into is an experiment we're trying with a no-till rotation this year. We've already talked a little bit about why we try to avoid mechanical tillage as much as possible, but we'll dig into that a little deeper this week (haha).

To give you a larger perspective on tillage (plowing) in the history of agriculture, I'm going to share a talk by Jane Mt. Pleasant, an agronomist at Cornell University who has done extensive research into Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) agriculture. It's a long talk (1 hour), but after last week's class conversation, I can't resist sharing it. I became familiar with Mt. Pleasant's work through a class I took last summer and her estimations of the productivity of Haudenosaunee farming methods exploded all my previous assumptions about indigenous Turtle Island farming.

Here's the link to her talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrK51bE1uSE


It may not be culturally appropriate or practical for us to copy Haudenosaunee farming methods precisely, but I think there is a lot for us to learn from the principles they employ. Question for you: After listening to Mt. Pleasant's talk, what general principles for successful gardening stand out to you? How might you employ those principles in a personal garden, community garden, or small farm?

Gleaning!

Hello all!

Thus far we have discussed agriculture from several different perspectives. We've looked at historical and ancestral connections to land, human rights violations endemic in much large-scale agriculture, the organic movement, and the economic theory behind agriculture as it stands today in the US. Since food waste can occur during all parts of the process of growing, distributing, and eating food, I thought it would be interesting to learn more about food waste and different tactics for minimizing it. My awareness of problems in agriculture began with an awareness of the massive food waste in the US when I started high school, and I have found that it is a relatable entry point into discussions of sustainability, since most people that I've talked to have witnessed egregious food waste at some point in their life. Kalamazoo College also facilitates a "Clean Plate Week" every year, as you may have seen or participated in if you eat in the cafeteria.

During my portion of class on Thursday, I'd love to show a short segment of the French documentary The Gleaners and I (French title: Les glaneurs et la glaneuse)  by Agnes Varda. Gleaning, according to Wikipedia, is "the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest." This practice has an interesting history, having been enforced by law in Europe due to Biblical writings stating that farmers should leave portions of their farms unharvested for folks who were poor and who were strangers. Today, gleaning includes gathering the food from supermarkets, restaurants, etc. that would be thrown away at the end of the day (also known as 'food rescue' or 'food salvage'), as well as 'dumpster diving.' The definition of gleaning from the USDA might then be more salient for our purposes: "Gleaning is simply the act of collecting excess fresh foods from farms, gardens, farmers markets, grocers, restaurants, state/county fairs, or any other sources in order to provide it to those in need" (also check out the USDA Gleaning Toolkit from which this definition came; it's pretty cool).

As we'll see from the documentary, individual people and nations have many different, often very strong, opinions about gleaning. Dumpster diving is currently legal in the United States, as of the 1988 California vs. Greenwood case, which ruled that there is no common law expectation of privacy for discarded materials. However, it is illegal in Belgium, Germany, and is loosely enforced in many other countries. Cities and counties have the right to designate certain garbageprocessing areas as off-limits to the public. Legal persecution of dumpster diving, and other forms of gleaning, is often related to trespassing, vandalism, privacy, and liability (e.g. concerning people who are injured on a company's property).

In preparation for the discussion on Thursday, I'd love for you to share your perspectives on dumpster diving and other forms of gleaning, particularly from the standpoints of legality and sustainability.

Here are a few questions to consider in your responses:

1. How do you feel about dumpster diving? Are there any barriers to making it legal in all areas that seem insurmountable (or that shouldn't be surmounted)? What do you think about other forms of gleaning (such as its original meaning of picking up unharvested food from fields)? Is there a way to regulate it, or should it be left to individuals to do on their own?

2. Have you ever dumpster-dove, or participated in food recovery in a different way? If so, how was that experience for you? If not, what (if any) form of food recovery appeals to you?

3. Are there alternative ways to distribute food that is 'on the brink' of spoiling, to satisfy business owners and consumers? It might help to take a look at TrashWiki(http://trashwiki.org/en/Main_Page), especially at their article with tips for business owners who do not want dumpster divers on their property (http://trashwiki.org/en/How_to_prevent_dumpster_diving).

4. If you are so inclined, look up a grocery store or restaurant that you frequent often and try to determine whether they allow dumpster diving. If it's not posted on their website, you could try calling; after all, it's legal in most of the US!

                Hey everybody! Hope you’re all off to a good week 4.

                I wanted to spend the time allotted to me this week by contextualizing some of the issues we’ve discussed revolving around food, soil, and the environment within an economics framework, as I have sacrificed my soul on the altar of the all-mighty dollar. I may be deluded, but it is my belief that economics as a field of study has a bad reputation. To be fair, we live in a world that is dominated and guided by economic ideas, and unpredictably, the world has hit a few snags. However, economics is at its core oriented towards improving the corporeal well-being of everybody involved through the efficient allocation of what scarce resources we have. To this end, however, it is essential that we accommodate for market failures and negative externalities through a transparent and benevolent governing hand invested in the welfare of its citizens.

                It is here that I believe we most often run astray. During my time this week I’d like to discuss the negative effects of the massive agricultural subsidies in the United States. Since the Agricultural Act of 1933, the US Government has sought to prop up farmers by artificially raising prices. What began under the noble purpose of ensuring that the country had enough to eat during the Great Depression, has since been justified through national security, or preserving a traditional “American lifestyle” of a small family farm. These same policies have remained a part of the political fabric, and farmers have served as a strong base for conservatives. However, the true beneficiaries of these subsidies are massive commercial farming operations, who use the image of a family friendly farmer, and their massive profits, to advance their position in politics.

                Evidence points to these subsidies artificially distorting the global agricultural market, and creating a net loss in welfare. Farmers are incentivized to grow as much as they can, and during most years, they are required by law to dump out a portion so as not to drive prices too low. This leads to farmers expanding into non-ideal land in an attempt to grow as much possible, which requires more intense fertilizer and pesticide usage. Secondly, the crops that are being subsidized (corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, dairy, and livestock) are highly processed and extremely unhealthy in their final form. Third, the US is by far the largest exporter of food in the world, and subsidizing American farming corporations comes at the expense of slow farmers around the world. Finally, subsidies distort the economy and are paid for by the consumer, to the benefit of the producer, although this process is not a simple transfer of welfare, it represents a net societal loss. Now we are looking down the barrel of another, 2018 farm bill which will continue the policies established in 1933.

                In anticipation of our class on Thursday, I’d like you to think of a few questions, or respond to the ones below.

How do you feel about the assertion that there is more than enough food to feed everybody on Earth? Is this a failure of the financial system we’ve constructed? What led to this? What’s an alternative?

Do you think food subsidies are ultimately necessary for a country? What is the worst case scenario?

See ya on Thursday!

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2530901

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/will-congress-pass-a-bloated-farm-bill/

http://neighborhoodeffects.mercatus.org/2013/07/09/why-do-almost-all-economists-oppose-u-s-farm-policy/

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/overhauling-the-farm-bill-the-real-beneficiaries-of-subsidies/254422/