Sustainability in the Balance
A Series on Social Issues in Sustainable Agriculture
The Human Face of Sustainable Agriculture:
Adding People to the Environmental Agenda
by Patricia Allen
Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
University of California, Santa Cruz
Issue Paper #4, November 1994
Introduction
High production levels and economic efficiency have long been
hallmarks of the U.S. food and agriculture system. In recent years,
however, the costs of these achievements have commanded more and more
attention as new instances of environmental and social problems
related to agriculture have come to the forefront all across the
country.
For many years now, sustainable agriculturalists have worked to
address these problems, primarily through developing environmentally
sound production techniques. The enormity of this task has so far
eclipsed equally important social issues in sustainable
agriculture.
This paper is intended to shed light on the dimensions of the
social problems we face in working toward sustainability and to
highlight some of the ways people have begun to address these
problems.1 Although sustainable agriculture issues are absolutely
global in scope, this paper focuses primarily on the United
States.
A Social Context for Sustainable Agriculture
The U.S. Congress defines sustainable agriculture to include a
commitment to "satisfy human food and fiber needs" and to "enhance
the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole."2 In order to
truly accomplish this we must begin with basic social questions.
Perhaps the most fundamental is Who and what do we want to sustain?
That is, which people and what structures are being sustained in our
current system and which people and what structures do we want to
sustain in our vision of the future? Until we directly address these
questions we cannot possibly know if our efforts toward
sustainability are moving us closer to or farther from our goals.
Achieving sustainability requires recognizing that social
systems&emdash;no less than farm systems&emdash;are dynamic products
of human choices, definitions, priorities, and uses. Agriculture
today, as throughout history, is socially organized, the outcome of
relationships among Resolving agricultural problems begins with the
recognition that human decisions and actions have created our food
and agriculture system.
Social relationships such as those embedded in agricultural and
economic systems often appear external, immutable, and eternal to us.
This illusion can sabotage our efforts to develop sustainable
systems. Yet, as pointed out by the Michael Fields Agricultural
Institute, sustainable agriculture proponents must work to
"understand, first, the interrelationships of environmental and
social degradation in the conventional agricultural system, and
second, the relationship of social sustainability to other dimensions
of agricultural sustainability."3
Integral to developing these understandings are questions such
as:
• Who benefits under the present system, who does not, and
why or why not?
• What types of social and economic structures are most
conducive to sustainability at local, regional, national, and
international levels?
• Which social patterns, values, or cultural traditions have
enhanced or limited sustainability?
In the following sections we explore the degree to which
agriculture benefits society as a whole. We begin with the premise
that sustainability problems arise not only from how humans have
treated the environment, but also from how people have treated each
other. The scope of social issues in food and agriculture is vast;
here we include: food distribution, control and concentration, income
distribution, labor conditions, power and decision making, and
research priorities.
Food Distribution Issues
In sustainable agriculture our tendency to focus on farm-level
production and organic food marketing threatens to obscure
consideration of how food must be equitably distributed once it has
been produced.
That feeding the world cannot be accomplished simply by producing
enough has been well proven. Although conventional agriculture has
done an excellent job of growing plenty of food, millions of people
do not get enough to eat. Worldwide, at least 500 million people,
mostly women and children, are chronically undernourished and many
more do not have the right kinds of food for a healthy, active life.4
In a world which produces enough food to feed everyone, 40,000 people
die every day of hunger and hunger-related causes.5
Although hunger is concentrated in the rural areas of impoverished
countries, the problem is not just overseas. In the U.S., 30 million
people suffer chronic undercon-sumption of adequate nutrients.6
Almost half of the hungry are children. In California&emdash;the
wealthiest state in the world's wealthiest nation&emdash;1.4 million
children are hungry or at risk of hunger.7 Children go hungry even in
Cali-fornia's Central Valley, a showcase of modern agricultural
productivity. U.S. hunger also has a clear racial
dimension&emdash;76% of the hungry are people of color.8
Proponents of chemical-intensive agriculture often criticize
sustainable agriculture on the grounds that it ignores hunger
problems. Although this criticism is leveled at production capacity
rather than the more central issues of distribution, it nonetheless
illustrates that sustainable agriculture needs to better address the
task of making food accessible to everyone.
With organic food prices estimated to be 25% to 50% higher than
those for conventionally grown food,9 the decision to buy sustainably
grown food may not currently be an option for many. In the U.S., poor
people often pay higher prices for their food and spend a higher
percentage of their incomes on food than do middle-income people. A
study conducted in Los Angeles found that a low-income family spends
36% of its annual income on food as compared to 12% for a
middle-income family.10 Sustainable agriculture must address problems
of hunger and poverty if sustainably produced food is to be more than
a privilege for the relatively affluent.
Control and Concentration in Food and
Agriculture
The demise of the family farm has long been a concern within
sustainable agriculture. It becomes harder and harder for many to
make a living in agriculture as ownership of resources and control of
decision making becomes concentrated among fewer and fewer people.
The American food and agriculture system has become highly
concentrated in both production and marketing, and the trend
continues.
Nearly half of U.S. land is farmland, over one billion acres.11
Only 4% of landowners hold 47% of this farmland.12 In California, the
nation's largest agricultural producer, 3% of California farms
control 60% of the market.13 Nationwide the figures are
similar&emdash;7% of American farms received 60% of the net cash farm
income in 1992.14 One study estimates that about 50,000 of the
largest farms in the U.S. will account for 75% of agricultural
production by the year 2000.15
Related to concentration of farming is concentration of marketing.
In the U.S. two companies control 50% of grain exports; three
companies slaughter nearly 80% of beef, four companies control nearly
85% of the cold cereal market and four companies mill nearly 60% of
the flour.16 There is also a long-term trend toward larger and fewer
grocery stores across the U.S.17 Supermarkets now dominate grocery
retailing, accounting for 4 out of every 5 dollars spent in retail
food stores.18
Ownership and control in U.S. agriculture also have distinct
gender and racial biases. Of those who control U.S. farmland, only 4%
are women.19 Women tend to own smaller farms&emdash;the average size
of property held by men is one-third larger than that held by
women.20
And although African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans have
always provided much of the farm labor in U.S. agriculture, they are
much less likely than European Americans to be farm operators.
Although they comprise nearly 25% of the population,21 nonwhites
operate a mere 2% of the farms in the U.S.22 Even in California, an
ethnically diverse state where 43% of the population is nonwhite,23
less than 7% of farm operators are nonwhite.24 In contrast,
California's farm labor force is composed almost exlcusively of
ethnic minorities.25
These levels of concentration and types of discrimination have
enormous implications for who has power in agriculture and who does
not, for whose voices will be heard and whose will be silenced, and
for who will make the policies that determine the food system for all
Americans.
Income Distribution in U.S. Agriculture
Throughout the U.S., inequality in income distribution is growing.
From 1973 to 1992, the average real income of the top one-fifth of
U.S. families rose 19% while for the lowest one-fifth it fell by
12%.26 Uneven income distribution is also prevalent in the food and
agriculture system&emdash;among rural citizens, between farmers and
farm workers, among farmers, and between farmers and consumers.
The economic picture in much of rural America is bleak, where
wages are often too low to keep many families out of poverty. This is
particularly true for ethnic minorities. In 1987, 57% of rural
Hispanics and over 60% of rural Blacks earned below the poverty level
for a family of four, while the rate for whites was lower at
40%.27
Irrespective of ethnicity, women are at an economic disadvantage
to men in the rural work force. Worldwide, women's wages in
agriculture are consistently lower than men's, sometimes as little as
63% of the male wage for comparable work.28 In the U.S., despite two
decades of affirmative action, rural women earn significantly less
than rural men. In 1987 less than a third of rural men workers, but
more than half of women workers had incomes below the poverty line
for a family of four even though they worked the equivalent of a
year-round, full-time job.29 One group most affected by this
disparity is children. Today one-fourth of all rural American
children live in poverty, 75% in a household with at least one
working adult.30
Rural poverty does not necessarily mean farm poverty, however.
Although farm household income has historically been lower than that
of nonfarm households in the U.S., this is no longer generally the
case. In 1990, compared to all U.S. households, farm operator
households had annual incomes $1,604 higher, had $13,320 less in
expenditures, and had $319,664 more net worth.31 Although farmers on
the whole are better off economically than nonfarmers, these average
figures mask significant differences among farmers. For example, of
the 7% of U.S. farm operators who are financially vulnerable, almost
half are small-scale farmers.32
The economic well-being of farm laborers, however, is uniformly
dire. Throughout the world many of those living in the worst poverty
are agricultural workers, and U.S. workers are no exception. Half of
U.S. farm worker families have incomes below the poverty level, with
the median family income between $7,500 and $10,000 a year.33 This is
particularly striking in that it is the 1.5% of U.S. farms with the
highest sales that employ over half of the farm labor.34
It is ironic that in California, the nation's largest agricultural
producer, some of the richest agricultural areas are home to some of
the poorest people in the entire United States.35 In fact, increases
in income from agriculture are associated with increasing levels of
poverty.36 Of the ten Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the
United States with the highest proportion of residents on welfare,
six are in California's agriculturally rich Central Valley.37 The
welfare recipients are not farm workers&emdash;less than 1% of farm
workers obtain support from public assistance.38
U.S. agricultural subsidies, originally established to stabilize
and improve farmer incomes, have contributed to uneven income
distributions. Since support programs link benefits to acreage
historically under production, the
primary beneficiaries of these programs are large land-owners. In
1992, 68% of U.S. government farm payments went to the wealthiest 19%
of agricultural producers.39 Not only do farm programs
disproportionately benefit larger farmers, they contain no provisions
for farm worker incomes.40
While it is estimated that fewer than 500,000 households benefit
from farm programs, those who pay are everyone else who pays both
higher taxes and higher food prices that result from these
programs.41 In 1986 government payments were sufficient to pay an
equivalent of $42,000 to each commercial farm while the U.S. median
family income was more than $14,000 lower than this figure.42 Between
1982 and 1988 higher food prices resulting from restricted supplies
generated by farm programs cost U.S. consumers between $5 and $10
billion in indirect costs.43 It has been estimated that farm
subsidies cost $400 or more per family.44 To justify this type of
taxpayer support for agriculture, farm programs need to be targeted
toward goals that benefit society as a whole, such as sustaining the
resource base and increasing diversity in the food and agriculture
sector.
Labor Conditions in Food and Agriculture
Workers in the U.S. food and agriculture industry&emdash;whether
in the field or factory&emdash;not only receive low wages, they
endure difficult, often dangerous working conditions. Few have
received the benefits of profitable and abundant U.S.
agriculture.
U.S. farm workers do a large share of the work in agriculture. In
California, for example, there are 18 farm workers for each farmer.
Hired farm workers perform at least 80% of all the farm work in the
State, for which they earn an average annual income of $3,000.45
One-third of U.S. farm laborers work in fields without drinking
water, hand washing facilities or toilets.46 And at the end of the
workday many farm workers do not have a home to go to. The only
national data on farm worker housing show that in 1980, housing was
available for only about one third of the estimated 1.2 million
migrant farm workers who needed it.47 In California (the only state
that has any data on occupational illness and injury rates for
agricultural workers), farm workers' illness and injury rate is the
highest of any occupation. 48
Many in sustainable agriculture have been concerned about
pesticide residues in our food and water supplies. For those who work
in the fields, pesticide exposure is even more direct, causing
poisonings, reproductive problems, and death. A study of migrant
children working on farms in New York state found that over 40% of
farm worker children interviewed had worked in fields still wet with
pesticides, and 40% had been sprayed while in the fields.49 Although
there is no national system for tracking pesticide poisonings, the
Environmental Protection Agency estimates that each year hired farm
workers suffer up to 300,000 acute illnesses and injuries from
exposure to pesticides.50 This continues to be the case because older
pesticides have been replaced by those that are less persistent in
the environment and foods but more acutely toxic for workers.51
Much of the work in the food and agriculture industry is in
factories rather than on farms. Working conditions in food processing
vary, but workers in produce and meat processing industries are often
poorly paid, seasonally terminated, have no benefits, and work under
miserable conditions. In the 1980s, Iowa meat packing industry wages
decreased regularly and in 1989 49% of Iowa meat packing workers
suffered work-related injuries or illnesses.52 At a North Carolina
chicken plant 25 workers were killed when they could not escape a
fire because fire exits were locked to prevent workers from stealing
chicken. A U.S. congressman summed up the situation, saying that this
was an industry that decided to subsidize its profits "with the
broken lives, limbs, lacerations, and decapitations of their
workers."53
While the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices is likely
to reduce worker exposure to toxic chemicals, there is little
evidence that other problems such as low wages or poor housing will
be resolved. The same alternative agriculture studies which detail
natural phenomena such as plant/insect interactions tend to ignore
human/human interactions, treating farm workers as just another cost
of production,54 and overlooking workers in other aspects of the food
and agriculture system.
Distribution of Power and Decision Making in U.S.
Agriculture
Our current food and agriculture system is the result of the
social structures, institutions, and processes which determine who
makes decisions in food and agriculture and in whose interests these
decisions are made. Historically, U.S. agricultural policy makers,
business and farm-group leaders, researchers, and educators have been
predominantly affluent European-American men. Women and people of
color, who do much of the work in agriculture and represent a
disproportionate percentage of the rural poor, are conspicuously
absent in key agricultural decision-making positions.
Skewed decision making is endemic to the federal legislature,
which sets food and agricultural policy priorities. Only 11% of those
in the House of Representatives and 7% of senators are women, most of
them recently elected and thus the most junior and least powerful
members of Congress.55 There are no Latinos or Native Americans and
only one African American among the 100 members of the U.S. Senate.
Of the 18 members of the powerful Senate Committee on Agriculture
there are no women, no African Americans, and no Latinos.
Government agencies related to agriculture have similarly
homogenous gender and racial compositions. No other federal agency
ranks lower in hiring and promoting minorities than the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, and 98% of the local officials who run
powerful USDA county and state committees are European-American
men.56 In 1992, 89% of senior-level USDA employees were white and 82%
were male.57 Rates for senior executives are even higher.58 The
Congressional Quarterly's 1993 listing of agricultural agencies shows
that 90% of those in powerful positions such as director,
administrative officer, assistant secretary, and chairperson are men.
In California's agriculture and resource state agencies, 15% of the
professional-level employees are women and 23% are ethnic
minorities.59
Other key decision makers in U.S. agriculture are researchers, who
are central to shaping the direction of agriculture. Only a small
proportion of these scientists are women or ethnic minorities,
although their representation is increasing. In 1976, less than 1% of
agricultural scientists were women and the agricultural sciences had
the highest percentage of whites&emdash;98.6%&emdash;of all
scientific fields in the United States.60 Ten years later, 7% of
agricultural scientists were women (compared to 18% of all U.S.
scientists) and 3% were African American, Native American, or
Hispanic (the same percentage as for all scientists).61
The situation in private industry does not seem to be any better,
particularly regarding women in management. According to a 1989
report, out of eleven major industries agriculture was the industry
least likely to employ women as managers, executives, or
administrators.62 Women employed in these positions made up less than
1% of the total managerial force in the agricultural industry.63 And,
even though the number of women-owned businesses in agriculture has
almost doubled since 1980, only one business sector (the
transportation, communication, and utilities sector), had fewer
women-owned businesses than agriculture.
Individual perspectives, which arise out of differences in class,
race, and gender experiences, play a pivotal role in what decision
makers see as problems and solutions. Inevitably, decision-making
groups which represent only a narrow range of perspectives can only
address a narrow range of issues and possibilities. In order to
achieve sustainability, agricultural instutions will need to become
democratic, redressing long-standing inequities in who makes
decisions in food and agriculture.
Research Priorities in Food and Agriculture
The research approaches we use in food and agriculture determine
how problems are defined, how solutions are derived, which options
are considered available, and what types of changes are likely to
take place. This research is considered so important that U.S.
taxpayers have funded agricultural research for more than a century.
Although the stated goal of this research is to "assure an ample,
safe, and nutritious food supply at reasonable cost, while
maintaining a sustainable production system,"64 public funding for
agricultural research has traditionally been focused on increasing
production. Less attention has been paid to the environmental or
social concerns of sustainable agriculture.
Sustainable agriculture advocates point out that sustainability
has yet to become a serious priority in the U.S. agricultural
research system. According to a 1993 self-review by the USDA
Agricultural Research Service, only about 1% of its research budget
was for sustainable agriculture research.65
While there is little resemblance between funding levels for
conventional and sustainable agriculture research, there is
considerable resemblance between the research priority areas of the
two. Both conventional and sustainable agriculture research focus
almost exclusively on technical production issues with very little
attention to social issues.
Support for social science research in agriculture, which has
always been very limited, has actually declined over the past
decade.66 In 1987 only 1% of USDA research was for projects in
sociology or anthropology.67 A review of 1993 USDA research grants
shows no increase in these areas.68 Similarly, in the federal
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program and in
most university research, virtually all research funds for
sustainable agriculture are spent on production-oriented
projects.
Agricultural research has clearly been dominated by production and
technical disciplines. This imbalance is exacerbated by isolation
since there is little interchange between social scientists and
scientists in other agricultural fields.69 Unfortunately, most U.S.
sustainable agriculture programs have reproduced this structure,
locating their work in the traditional agricultural research
arenas.
Locating sustainable agriculture research almost exclusively
within these areas has resulted in a sense that sustainability
problems can best be addressed through technological, economistic
approaches and leaves unexamined the degree to which environmental
problems have deep social roots. Yet if sustainable agriculture is
about improving the food and agriculture system, it requires
enlarging our sights far beyond the farm and beyond our local
communities to include ownership and employment patterns; government
services and policies; and how products are distributed, consumed,
and traded. If we do not expand our approach, we place ourselves at
great risk of unintentionally reproducing the social and
environmental problems of our present agricultural system.
The USDA now recognizes that the issues of rural America are
largely social, economic, and cultural and as such "cannot
successfully be addressed solely with the knowledge generated by the
biological or agricultural sciences."70 Some of the regional SARE
programs are actively working to integrate social and quality of life
issues into their research and education program.71
The complexity of factors involved in sustainability requires
diverse perspectives and approaches to sustainable food and
agriculture theory and practice. Political ecology is an example of
an approach which combines the study of ecological factors and
processes with political economic structures and systems.
Interdisciplinary work such as this can help us to formulate more
holistic research questions. For example, research questions in pest
management might include: What will be the effect on farm worker
health, wages, and working conditions? Will the price of the product
to the consumer change? How can policies be changed to encourage
adoption of the technologies?
Addressing social issues such as food distribution, control of
resources, and labor conditions requires a significant increase in
sustainability funding along with a redirection of current funding
toward the broader social aspects of food and agriculture. It clearly
also requires expanding the number of sustainable agriculture
researchers trained in the social sciences.
How Have We Begun to Address Social Issues?
Within the U.S. there are a number of programs and organizations
which recognize that sustainable agriculture is incomplete as a
production model alone, and that social problems and solutions should
and can be addressed within the framework of a sustainable food
system. Although there is no one project that comprehensively
addresses the issues highlighted in this paper, many are beginning to
focus on one or more of the issue areas. Mentioned here are efforts
that grapple with problems such as how to provide everyone with
access to nutritious food, how to develop better conditions for farm
workers, and ways to improve the gender and ethnicity balance of
agricultural decision makers.
Food Policy: Feeding People As a First Priority
Throughout North America, organizations known as food policy
councils begin with the assumption that nutritious food is a basic
right of all citizens and that governments and community groups
should take active roles in planning for and ensuring food
security.72
Food policy councils have worked to stop the flight of
supermarkets from the inner city; encouraged community gardens and
farmers' markets in cities; lobbied for better food assistance
programs, low-income housing, and decent wages for low-income
residents; and supported the use of sustainable production practices
and organic farming. Most also have active educational components
wherein they have developed and distributed educational materials on
nutritional, environmental, and food system issues; sponsored
discussion meetings on hunger issues; studied food access problems;
and increased outreach for available nutrition programs.
Food policy councils have evolved either as community-based
nonprofits or as advisory bodies within local government. In some
cases, nonprofits and governmental groups work together, providing a
powerful partnership. Canada's Toronto Food Policy Council is a
collaborative effort of Toronto city government and citizens.
Together they have developed a food policy for the city which
establishes the right of all residents to adequate, nutritious food,
and pro-motes food production and distribution systems that are
equitable, nutritionally excellent, and environmentally sound. This
Council frames food security as a basic health issue. In this view,
alleviating hunger is necessary to ensure public health, and is seen
not only as a socially just objective but an economically sound one
as well.
Food and Jobs for Those without Homes
The Homeless Garden Project of Santa Cruz, California is a model
program which brings together sustainable food growing practices and
assistance for homeless people on a 2.5-acre garden located within
the city. Now in its fourth year, the Project produces organic
flowers and vegetables for fresh market and for the 130 members of
its community-supported agriculture program. In addition to a host of
volunteers, a handful of staff, and a supervisorial team of formerly
homeless individuals, the Project employs 15 homeless men and women
for up to 30 hours per week. Plans are underway to expand the number
of paid positions to 22 and a nine-month, hands-on job training
program is being developed.
Working in the garden provides an important focus for those who
otherwise must cope with a life-sapping sense of displacement, and
enables many homeless people to make constructive changes in their
lives. One of the Project's most important benefits is the community
forum it provides for homeless and "housed" people to come together
in ways which open dialogue and build understanding.
New Opportunities for Farm Workers
The Rural Development Center (RDC) is an agricultural training and
resource center which offers classes and an opportunity for practical
education to farm workers and low-income people in California's
Salinas Valley. The RDC promotes self reliance by helping people gain
skills and experience to pursue dignified, productive, and
ecologically sound work.
RDC's Small Farm Education Program is a six-month intensive course
covering small farm production, marketing and small business
management, organic certification, and English and math skills for
agricultural applications. The Community Gardening Program, which
uses organic methods to raise food for families and the community,
emphasizes the needs and priorities of women, children, and youth.
The RDC also maintains a library and resource center which provide
information on sustainable agriculture and community-based education
and development.
Diversifying the Dialogue on Sustainability and
Policy
The new Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture is working toward
fundamental reforms in federal food and agriculture policy.
Recognizing the piecemeal and inequitable process which heretofore
has determined national agricultural policy, the Campaign actively
seeks to diversify the people and interests which will contribute to
the formation of the 1995 Farm Bill.
Women and ethnic minorities play significant roles in the
Campaign, which is composed of hundreds of grassroots and national
organizations and includes representation of family farmers,
environmentalists, farm workers, consumers, and animal protection
advocates.73 By including those who have previously had little or no
voice in national agricultural policy, the Campaign orients its
approach to sustainability to include social as well as environmental
goals. In addition to conservation-oriented policy options, the
Campaign supports those focused on social justice, such as ending
discrimination against minority farmers and improving wages and
working conditions for farm workers.
Integrating Women into Agricultural Decision
Making
At a time when the agricultural work force, particularly in
transportation and distribution, is mostly male, an innovative
company in San Francisco is working to change that. Veritable
Vegetable, the oldest U.S. distributor of organic produce and a
company which actively promotes sustainable agriculture, uses a form
of participatory management in which all workers have input into
decision making. The success of this business shows women's
competence in areas of the agricultural work force from which they
have been excluded. Women are hired for every aspect of distribution,
including loading produce, driving trucks, and management. By
advocating gender equity, this group hopes to bring new awareness of
these issues to farmers, store owners, and other individuals
throughout the chain of agricultural relations.74
A Broad-Based Coalition of Sustainability
Organizations
The California Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (CASA) is a
new coalition created through the assistance of the W. K. Kellogg
Foundation. The development of CASA is based on the recognition that
redirecting agricultural policy and practice onto a more sustainable
path can only be accomplished if diverse groups find ways to work
together constructively. The goal of CASA, which brings together
nonprofit and university groups, is to "build food and agriculture
systems that provide everyone with sufficient, healthy food; create
just and humane social relations; and promote communities suited to
the constraints of their 'natural' environments." CASA is working
toward analysis of the obstacles to sustainability and
community-based actions to create a sustainable and equitable food
and agriculture system.
A Final Note
As we work toward sustainability, which and whose needs we decide
to address and which social structures we decide to sustain will
determine our future food and agriculture system. The priorities we
choose will carry important implications not only for the
environment, but for the lives of people occupying different
positions within the food and agriculture system.
Many people will continue to suffer degradation in the shadow of a
sustainability vision focused on the environment unless we expand our
vision to include all people. We need to focus on interactions not
only between people and the environment but also among people in
different jobs, cultures, and socio-economic positions. Unless we do,
our efforts to conserve and replenish the agricultural resource base
are likely to falter, and many of our society's children will
continue to go hungry&emdash;a condition no one would choose to
sustain.
Notes
1 For a more theoretical approach to social issues in sustainable
agriculture see Patricia Allen, Food for the Future: Conditions
and Contradictions of Sustainability, (New York: John Wiley and
Sons, 1993).
2 Paul F. O'Connell, "Sustainable Agriculture," in Agriculture
and the Environment: The 1991 Yearbook of Agriculture, edited by
Deborah Takiff Smith (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1991), 176.
3 Cheryl Miller, Issues in Sustainable Agriculture: What Are
the Next Steps?, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute Bulletin
no. 2, report on a symposium held in June 1991 (East Troy, WI: MFAI
Inc, 1992), 6-7.
4 United Nations World Food Council, "The Global State of Hunger
and Malnutrition: 1990 Report," Sixteenth Ministerial Session held in
Bangkok, Thailand (United Nations, 10 April 1990, photocopied),
1.
5 James Gustave Speth, "A New U.S. Program for International
Development and the Global Environment," Issues and Ideas, World
Resources Institute (March 1992): 2.
6 John Cook and J. Larry Brown, "30 Million Hungry Americans,"
Analysis prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Select
Committee on Hunger (Medford, MA: Center on Hunger, Poverty and
Nutrition Policy, Tufts University, 1992).
7 Laurie True, "Hunger in the Balance: The Impact of the Proposed
AFDC Cuts on Childhood Hunger in California," California Rural Legal
Assistance Foundation (San Francisco, CA: CRLA, March 1992,
photocopied), 2.
8 Richard A. Hoehn, "United States," in Hunger 1992: Second
Annual Report on the State of World Hunger (Washington, D.C.:
Bread for the World Institute on Hunger and Development, 1991),
158.
9 Telephone interview with Desmond Jolly, Agricultural Economist,
University of California, Davis, May 4, 1994.
10 Linda Ashman et al., Seeds of Change: Strategies for Food
Security for the Inner City, prepared for the Southern California
Interfaith Hunger Coalition (Los Angeles: Interfaith Hunger
Coalition, 1993), exec. sum.
11 U.S. Department of Agriculture, A Profile of Female Farmers
in America, prepared for the Economic Research Service by Judith
Z. Kalbacher, Rural Development Research Report no. 45 (Herndon, VA:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, January 1985), 3.
12 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Vol. 3,
Related Surveys, Part 2, Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership
Survey 1988, Change Sheet, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office), table 66, p. 225.
13 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Market
Value of Agricultural Products Sold 1987, 1982, and 1978,
Geographic Area Series, Part 5: California State and County Data
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), table 2, p.
9.
14 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Rural Economy
Division, Economic Research Service, Economic Indicators of the
Farm Sector: National Financial Summary 1992, ECIFS 12-1
(Herndon, VA: U.S.D.A., January 1994), calculated from table 49.
15 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technology,
Public Policy, and the Changing Structure of American Agriculture,
OTA-F-285 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
March 1986), 91.
16 A.V. Krebs, "America's New 'Centrally Planned' Food Economy,"
Prairie Journal, Prairie Fire Rural Action (Des Moines, IA:
Summmer 1992) :6-7.
17 Bruce W. Marion, The Organization and Performance of the
U.S. Food System, (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1986),
295.
18 Frederick E. Geithman and Bruce Marion, "Testing for Market
Power in Supermarket Prices: A Review of the Kaufman-Handy/ERS
Study," in Competitive Strategy Analysis in the Food System,
edited by Ronald W. Cotterill (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1993), 253.
19 U.S. Department of Agriculture, A Profile of Female Farmers
in America, prepared for the Economic Research Service by Judith
Z. Kalbacher, Rural Development Research Report no. 45 (Herndon, VA:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, January 1985), 3.
20 U.S. Bureau of Census, Agricultural Economics and Land
Ownership Survey, 1988. Also cited in Anne B.W. Effland , Denise
M. Rogers, and Valerie Grimm, "Women as Agricultural Landowners: What
Do We Know About Them?" Agricultural History 67, no. 2 (Spring 1985):
245.
21 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 Census of Population, United
States Summary, table 3, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990 (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), 3.
22 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Tenure
and Characteristics of Operator and Type of Organization for All
Farms and Farms Operated by Black and Other Races: 1987, 1982, and
1978, Geographic Area Series, Part 5: California State and County
Data (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), table 16,
p. 20.
23 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 Census of Population,
California, table 3, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990, (Washington,
D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office), 25.
24 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Summary
by Market Value of Agricultural Products Sold: 1987, Geographic
Area Series, Part 5: California State and County Data (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), table 52, p. 112.
25 Susan Peck, California Farm Worker Housing, Working
Group on Farm Labor and Rural Poverty, Working Paper #6, California
Institute for Rural Studies (Davis, CA: CIRS, February 1989), 2.
26 Economic Report of the President, Transmitted to the
Congress February 1994 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing
Office, 1994), 115.
27 Lucy Gorham, "The Growing Problem of Low Earnings in Rural
Areas," in Rural Poverty in America, edited by Cynthia M.
Duncan (New York: Auburn House, 1992), 26.
28 International Labor Office, Yearbook of Labor Statistics,
"Wages in Agriculture," (Geneva: International Labor Office, 1988),
891-898. Also cited in Linda Schmittroth, ed., Statistical Record
of Women Worldwide, 1st ed. (Detroit/London: Gale Research Inc.,
1991), table 441, p. 368.
29 Lucy Gorham, "The Growing Problem of Low Earnings in Rural
Areas," in Rural Poverty in America, edited by Cynthia M.
Duncan (New York: Auburn House, 1992), 25.
30 William P. O'Hare, The Rise in Poverty in Rural America,
Population Trends and Public Policy Series ISSN: 0736-7716, no.
15 (Washington D.C.: Population Ref. Bureau, July 1988), 1.
31 U.S. Department of Agriculture, The Economic Well-Being of
Farm Operator Households, 1988-90, prepared for the Economic
Research Service by Mary C. Ahearn, Janet E. Perry, and Hisham S.
El-Osta, Agricultural Economic Report no. 666 (Herndon, VA: U.S.
Department of Agriculture, January 1993), calculated from table, p.
8.
32 U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1990 Agricultural Chartbook
(Washington, D.C.: Economic Research Service, April 1990), 6.
33 U.S. General Accounting Office, Hired Farmworkers: Health
and Well-Being at Risk, Human Resources Division, report no.
92-46 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, February 1992), 25.
34 Doris P. Slesinger and Max J. Pfeffer, "Migrant Farm Workers,"
in Rural Poverty in America, edited by Cynthia M. Duncan (New
York: Auburn House, 1992), 143.
35 Kai Siedenburg, "The Community Alliance with Family Farmers:
Linking Agriculture with Social Justice and the Environment,"
Gaining Ground, 2, no. 1 (Winter 1994): 8.
36 Dean MacCannell, "Industrial Agriculture and Rural Community
Degredation [sic]," in Agriculture and Community Change in
the U.S., edited by Louis E. Swanson (Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1988), 50.
37 Don Villarejo, "Environmental Effects of Living and Working In
Agricultural Areas of California: Social and Economic Factors," in
Health Concerns of Living and Working in Agricultural
California, report of a conference held at the University of
California at Davis (Davis, CA: Center for Occupational and
Environmental Health, 1990), 23.
38 Don Villarejo, "Environmental Effects of Living and Working In
Agricultural Areas of California: Social and Economic Factors," in
Health Concerns of Living and Working in Agricultural
California, report of a conference held at the University of
California at Davis (Davis, CA: Center for Occupational and
Environmental Health, 1990), 22.
39 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Rural Economy
Division, Economic Research Service, Economic Indicators of the
Farm Sector: National Financial Summary 1992, ECIFS 12-1
(Herndon, VA: U.S.D.A., January 1994), calculated from table 49.
40 Doris P. Slesinger and Max J. Pfeffer, "Migrant Farm Workers,"
in Rural Poverty in America, edited by Cynthia M. Duncan (New
York: Auburn House, 1992), 139.
41 Clifton B. Luttrell, The High Cost of Farm Welfare
(Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1989), 120.
42 Economic Report of the President, Transmitted to the
Congress January 1987 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing
Office, 1987), 152.
43 Paul Faeth et al., Paying the Farm Bill: U.S. Agricultural
Policy and the Transition to Sustainable Agriculture, World
Resources Institute. (Washington, D.C.: WRI, 1991), 1.
44 Clifton B. Luttrell, The High Cost of Farm Welfare
(Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1989), ix.
45 Don Villarejo, "Environmental Effects of Living and Working In
Agricultural Areas of California: Social and Economic Factors," in
Health Concerns of Living and Working in Agricultural California,
report of a conference held at the University of California at
Davis (Davis, CA: Center for Occupational and Environmental Health,
1990), 20.
46 U.S. General Accounting Office, Hired Farmworkers: Health
and Well-Being at Risk, Human Resources Division (HRD), report
no. 92-46 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, February 1992), 18.
47 U.S. General Accounting Office, Hired Farmworkers: Health
and Well-Being at Risk, Human Resources Division (HRD), report
no. 92-46 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, February 1992), 28.
48 Dr. Marion Moses, testimony prepared for the Senate Committee
on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Hearings on Amendments to
the Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) on 30 July,
1987, (San Francisco, CA: Pesticide Education Center), 3.
49 U.S. General Accounting Office, Hired Farmworkers: Health
and Well-Being at Risk, Human Resources Division (HRD), report
no. 92-46 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, February 1992), 13.
50 U.S. General Accounting Office, Hired Farmworkers: Health
and Well-Being at Risk, Human Resources Division (HRD), report
no. 92-46 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, February 1992), 3.
51 For example, parathion, one of the pesticides used today in
place of DDT, is much more toxic to humans. Although parathion breaks
down more quickly in the environment than older chemicals like DDT,
it releases a chemical which is fifty-five times more toxic than the
parent chemical when absorbed by human skin. For more on this subject
see Robert F. Wasserstrom and Richard Wiles, Field Duty: U.S.
Farmworkers and Pesticide Safety, World Resources Institute Study
no. 3 (Washington, D.C.: WRI, July 1985), 1-3.
52 U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and
Forestry. Subcommittee on Nutrition and Investigations. Hearing on
Economic Concentration in the Meatpacking Industry. 101st Congress,
2nd session (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 20
July 1990), 5.
53 U.S. Congress, Hearing on H.R. 3160, House Committee on
Education and Labor, Comprehensive Occupational Safety and Health
Reform Act, and the Fire at the Imperial Food Products Plant in
Hamlet, North Carolina, (statement made by Rep. George
Miller-CA)102nd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 12 September 1991), 16.
54 See, for example, the report published by the Committee on the
Role of Alternative Farming Methods in Modern Production Agriculture,
Board on Agriculture, National Research Council, Alternative
Agriculture (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1989).
55 Jennifer Dunn, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report,
51, no. 3 (16 January 1993): S146.
56 "Inside the USDA, it's a white male bastion," Headline in
The Kansas City Star, 8-14 December 1991.
57 U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Statistical Analysis and
Services Division, Federal Civilian Workforce Statistics:
Demographic Profile of the Federal Workforce, PSO-OWI-5
(Washington, D.C.: Office of Personnel Management, 30 September
1992), calculated from tables on pages 80 and 104.
58 Permission to publish the specific data was withheld.
59 Suzanne Vaupel, Minorities and Women in California
Agriculture, University of California Agricultural Issues Center
Paper no. 88-2, (Davis, CA: UC Agricultural Issues Center, January
1988), 42.
60 Lawrence Busch and William B. Lacy, Science, Agriculture,
and the Politics of Research (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983),
51.
61 National Science Foundation, Profiles&emdash;Agricultural
Science: Human Resources and Funding, NSF 89-319, (Washington,
D.C.: NSF, 1989), 19, 27.
62 U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Facts on Working
Women, report no. 89-4 (Washington, D.C.: Govt. Printing Office,
December 1989), 5. Also cited in Linda Schmittroth, ed.,
Statistical Record of Women Worldwide, 1st ed.
(Detroit/London: Gale Research Inc., 1991), table 540, p. 445.
63 U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Facts on Working
Women, report no. 89-5 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, December 1989). Also cited in Linda Schmittroth, ed.,
Statistical Record of Women Worldwide, 1st ed.
(Detroit/London: Gale Research Inc., 1991), table 58, p. 40.
64 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, An
Assessment of the United States Food and Agricultural Research
System, OTA-F-155 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, December 1981), 21.
65 Elizabeth Bird, "Reviewing Commitments to Sustainable
Agriculture Research," Consortium News, Consortium for
Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, Center for Rural
Affairs, no. 1 (1994): 3-4.
66 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dynamics of the Research
Investment: Issues and Trends in the Agricultural Research System
(Washington, D.C.: Cooperative State Research Service, July 1993),
47.
67 National Science Foundation, Profiles&emdash;Agricultural
Science: Human Resources and Funding, NSF 89-319, (Washington,
D.C.: NSF, 1989), calculated from tables 32 and 34, pp. 144, 147.
68 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Agriculture
Competitively Awarded Research and Education Grants: Fiscal Year
1993 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Grants and Program Systems,
Cooperative State Research Service, January 1994).
69 Lawrence Busch and William B. Lacy, Science, Agriculture,
and the Politics of Research, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1983), 102.
70 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dynamics of the Research
Investment: Issues and Trends in the Agricultural Research System,
(Washington, D.C.: Cooperative State Research Service, July
1993), 48.
71 Elizabeth Bird, Center for Rural Affairs. Telephone
conversation, July 25, 1994.
72 All information for section on food councils from: Linda Ashman
et al., Seeds of Change: Strategies for Food Security for the
Inner City, report prepared for the Southern California
Interfaith Hunger Coalition (Los Angeles: SCIHC), 273-294.
73 National Sustainable Agriculture Coordinating Council, "The
Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, Working Toward a New Direction
in Federal Farm and Food Policy" (Goshen, NY: NSACC, n.d.), 1-9.
74 Gabriela E. Sosa, "Women and the Sustainable Agriculture
Movement," Environmental Studies Thesis (Santa Cruz, CA: University
of California, 1992).
