Opposition within the organic agriculture community to a state regulatory initiative intended to close a loophole on the prohibition of stoop labor in California agriculture illuminates critical tensions around the “labor question” underpinning California's rapidly expanding organic sector. Through an exploration of the contradictions between the political economic realities of organic agriculture, the lived realities of farm workers, and the ideological framework of “agricultural exceptionalism” espoused in the organic community, this article challenges widely held assumptions that organic agriculture embodies a more socially sustainable form of production. We conclude that these tensions must be confronted if any progress is to be made toward the incorporation of social justice into definitions of agro-food system sustainability.
Douglas L.Murray, "The Abolition of El Cortito, the Short-Handled Hoe: A Case Study in Social Conflict and State Policy in California Agriculture"Social Problems30 (1982): 26-39.
2.
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, " State of California Takes Meaningful First Step to Close `Hand-Weeding Loophole' to Short-Handled Tool Ban," www.crlaf.org (accessed June 16, 2004).
3.
The petition was filed by the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, and the California Labor Federation.
4.
In fact, during a first Assembly floor vote, the bill, authored by Senator Gloria Romero, received majority support. Key support for the bill came from the Teamsters Union, California State Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, United Farm Workers of America, and the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. Opposition groups included California Certified Organic Farmers, the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the Western Growers Association, and the California Farm Bureau.
5.
Senate Bill No. 534 (Romero), California State Legislative Service, http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/03-04/bill/sen/sb_0501-0550/sb_534_bill_20030909_amended_asm.pdf (accessed May 12, 2008).
6.
Authors' interview with organic grower and California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) representative, March 2004.
7.
Our research design incorporated multiple methods of data collection, including: (1) Qualitative interviews with key actors in the farm labor and organic agriculture movements, organic growers, and agro-food researchers conducted during 2003-2004 and 2006; (2) A review of written materials from organizations representing farm labor, and organic and sustainable growers; (3) A review of public documents from meetings of the California Occupational and Health (Cal-OSHA) Standards Board, the Cal-OSHA Hand Weeding Subcommittee, and the 2003-2004 California Legislative session. Information on the positions of organic growers also comes from a survey conducted by two of the authors during the spring of 2004, data and analysis from which are presented in Aimee Shreck, Christy Getz, and Gail Feenstra, "Social Sustainability, Farm Labor, and Organic Agriculture: Findings from an Exploratory Analysis," Agriculture and Human Values23, no. 4 (2006): 239-49.
8.
Pascal Liu, Mikkel Andersen, and Catherine Pazderka , "Voluntary Standards and Certification for Environmentally and Socially Responsible Agricultural Production and Trade ( Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization , April 22, 2004).
9.
Michael Sligh and Carolyn Christman , "Who Owns Organic? The Global Status, Prospects, and Challenges of a Changing Organic Market" (Pittsboro, NC: RAFI-USA, 2003).
10.
Nutrition Business Journal Data cited in: "The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America, Briefing Room: Organic Agriculture: Consumer Demand Continues to Expand,"USDA Economic Research Service, http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/Organic/Demand.htm (accessed October 18, 2007).
11.
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Economic Research Service, "The Economics of Food, Farming, Natural Resources, and Rural America," http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/Organic/ (accessed October 18, 2007).
12.
Ibid. According to this report, California had 1916 certified operations, while Wisconsin had 580.
13.
Ibid.
14.
Table developed from primary data authors' obtained from the Registry of Certified Organic Operations, California Department of Food and Agriculture (2006).
15.
Karen Klonsky, "Organic Agricultural Production in California" in California Agriculture: Dimensions and Issues, ed. J. Siebert (Berkeley: UC Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, 2003), 241-55.
16.
Karen Klonsky and Kurt Richter, "Statistical Review of California's Organic Agriculture, 2000-2005 " (Davis, CA: University of California at Davis Agricultural Issues Center, 2007).
17.
CDFA Registry; Klonsky and Richter , "Statistical Review."
18.
Source: Karen Klonsky , Laura Tourte, Robin Kozloff, and Benjamin Shouse, "A Statistical Picture of California's Organic Agriculture, 1995-1998" (Davis, CA: University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Agricultural Issues Center); Klonsky and Richter , "Statistical Review"
19.
USDA Economic Research Service, "Farm Characteristics, 1992, 1997, and 2002 Census of Agriculture," http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/CA.htm#FC (accessed November 17, 2007).
20.
Ibid.
21.
For a full analysis of survey responses from a survey of 170 organic growers see Shreck, Getz, Feenstra, "Social Sustainability, Farm Labor, and Organic Agriculture."
22.
U.S. Department of Labor, " Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 2001-2002: A Demographic and Employment Profile of United States Farm Workers," http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/report9/toc.cfm. The National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS 2002) estimates that undocumented immigrants represent 52 percent of the national workforce, while the United Farm Workers suggest the figure may be as high as 85 to 90 percent in California.
23.
Authors' interview with Don Villarejo, August 2003.
24.
M.A. Kahn, P. Martin, and P. Hardiman, "Employment and Earnings of Farm Workers: California and San Joaquin Valley, 1991, 1996, 2001," Sacramento, Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division, 2003, http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/admin/uploadedPublications/516_FarmWorkerEmpEarn2001.pdf.
25.
Ibid.
26.
Authors' interview with Don Villarejo, August 2003.
27.
Because agricultural labor and employment statistics do not differentiate between organic and conventional, small and large, family and corporate operations, comprehensive data-tracking variation in incomes and labor practices for workers in these different segments of agricultural production is not readily available. However, interviews with farm workers, labor advocates, and growers indicate similar wages and working conditions. Also see: Felicia Mello, "Hard Labor ," The Nation, August 24, 2006; Jason Mark, "Us vs. Stem," Grist, August 2, 2006 .
28.
Guthman, Agrarian Dreams; Shreck, Getz, and Feenstra , "Social Sustainability, Farm Labor, and Organic Agriculture"; R. Strochlic, C. Wirth, A. F. Besada , and C. Getz, Farm Labor Conditions on Organic Farms in California (Davis, CA: California Institute for Rural Studies, forthcoming at www.cirsinc.org).
29.
Guthman, Agrarian Dreams , 52.
30.
Shreck, Getz, and Feenstra, " Social Sustainability, Farm Labor, and Organic Agriculture."
31.
California Certified Organic Farmers, "Top Ten Reasons to Buy Organic," http://www.ccof.org (accessed October 23, 2007).
32.
Authors' interview with Don Villarejo, August 2003.
33.
Don Villarejo and S.L. Baron, "The Occupational Status of Hired Farm Workers," Occupational Medicine: State of the Art Reviews, Special Populations14 (1999): 613-35.
34.
According to testimony before the California Supreme Court from eleven physicians who either specialized in back injuries or had extensive experience in treating farm workers (CRLAF, "State of California Takes Meaningful First Step").
35.
For an overview of the health risks associated with pesticide exposure see, Margaret Reeves , Anne Katten, and Martha Guzman, Fields of Poison 2002: California Farmworkers and Pesticides (San Francisco : Californians for Pesticide Reform, 2002) and Jill Harrison, "Abandoned Bodies and Spaces of Sacrifice: Pesticide Drift Activism and the Contestation of Neoliberal Environmental Politics in California," Geoforum39 no. 3 (2008): 1197-214.
36.
The exploitative nature of farm work in the United States is well documented. For recent accounts see Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000 [1998 ]); Charles D. Thompson, Jr. and Melinda F. Wiggins, The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers' Lives, Labor, and Advocacy ( Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002); California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS) , In Their Own Words: Farmworker Access to Health Care in Four California Regions (Davis, CA: CIRS, n.d.); and Richard Mines, "Farmworker Health in a Binational Context ," (San Francisco: Challenges in Agricultural Health and Safety Conference, September 7-9, 2003).
37.
Gregory Rodriguez , "Disposable Workers Wanted in Colorado," Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2007.
38.
Richard A. Walker , The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California (New York and London , The New Press, 2004), 66-67. The often-violent process by which California's agricultural working class was formed has been well documented. For historical analysis of California's agricultural working class formation, labor exploitation, and resistance see Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley: University of California Press , 1994); George Henderson, California and the Fictions of Capital (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Cary McWilliams, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1969); Don Mitchell, The Lie of the Land: Migrant Workers and the California Landscape (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1996); Devra Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold: California Farm Workers, Cotton, and the New Deal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
39.
Peter Andreas , Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide (Ithaca: Cornell University Press , 2000); Kitty Calavita, Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration and the INS (New York : Routledge, 1992); Cletus Daniel, Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farm Workers, 1870-1941 ( Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981); Joseph Nevins, Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the "Illegal Alien" and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary ( New York and London: Routledge , 2002).
40.
Nevins, Operation Gatekeeper , 40.
41.
Ibid., 157.
42.
David Goodman and Michael Goodman , "Sustaining Foods: Organic Consumption and the Socio-Ecological Imaginary" in Sustainable Consumption: Conceptual Issues and Policy Problems , ed. M. Cohen and J. Murphy (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2001), 97-119.
43.
Patricia Allen, Together at the Table: Sustainability and Sustenance in the American Agrifood System (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004).
44.
See, for example, Daniel Jaffee, Jack R. Kloppenburg, and Mario B. Monroy, "Bringing the `Moral Charge' Home: Fair Trade within the North and within the South,"Rural Sociology69, no. 2 (2004): 169-96.
45.
Ccof, "Timeline of the Birth of the National Organic Program," California Certified Organic Farmers MagazineXXI, 4 (2002-2003): 22.
46.
Caff, "Organic Directory," http://www.ccof.org/cgi-bin/organicdirectory_search.cgi (accessed December 20, 2007); CAFF's membership base includes growers from outside of California as well.
47.
Caff, "History,"http://www.caff.org/join/history.shtml (accessed October 23, 2007); authors' interview with CAFF Representative, September 2003.
48.
California Coalition for Food and Farming, " What is California Coalition for Food and Farming?" http://www.calfoodandfarming.org/about (accessed October 23, 2007).
49.
Julie Guthman , Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004).
50.
Elizabeth Henderson , "Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference Keynote Address: Who Should Own Organic?" La Crosse, WI, February 26, 2003, http://www.newfarm.org/depts/talking_shop/0304/moseshenderson.shtml (accessed October 24, 2007).
51.
Phil Howard , "Consolidation in Food Retailing and Dairy." British Food Journal103, no. 10 (2001): 715-28; Sligh and Christman, " Who Owns Organic?"
52.
Guthman, Agrarian Dreams; Samuel Fromartz, Organics, Inc., Natural Foods and How They Grew (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc. , 2006).
53.
Timothy Vos , "Visions of the Middle Landscape: Organic Farming and the Politics of Nature," Agriculture and Human Values17 (2000): 245-56, 247. Vos provides a thorough overview of the divergent perspectives of organic agriculture activists and the USDA.
54.
Guthman, Agrarian Dreams , 111.
55.
Authors' interview with representative of CA-SAWG, March 2004.
56.
Authors' interview with farm labor advocate, April 2004.
57.
Authors' interview with farm labor advocate, June 2004.
58.
Authors' interview with CCOF Representative, August 2003.
59.
Ibid.
60.
Authors' interview with CAFF Representative, September 2003.
61.
Authors' interview with farm labor advocate, June 2004.
62.
Authors' interview with sustainable agriculture researcher, August 2003.
63.
Patricia Allen , Margaret FitzSimmons, Michael Goodman, and Keith Warner, "Shifting Plates in the Agrifood Landscape: The Tectonics of Alternative Agrifood Initiatives in California," Journal of Rural Studies19 (2003): 61-75.
64.
Authors' interview with CAFF Representative, September 2003.
65.
Guthman, Agrarian Dreams , 176.
66.
The June 1993 ruling by Cal-OSHA found that because it requires bending an additional six to twelve inches, hand weeding places additional stress on the back and contributes to lower-back morbidity. The memo stated that action was required to prohibit these activities, as was intended by Section 3456 of Cal-OSHA rules. As of 2003, that action had still not been taken, despite efforts to come to some agreement with agricultural employers. Source: Labor Presentation, "Minutes of Handweeding Advisory Committee" (Sacramento, State of California Department of Industrial Relations, Occupational and Health Safety Standards Board, February 6, 2003).
67.
CRLA representatives testified that, while some growers were willing to fabricate longer, appropriate handles for their tools when approached, others sought to circumvent the ban by switching to hand weeding. One representative further commented that, after the short-handled hoe was banned, he saw all the crews using long-handled tools but that more recently he had seen an increase in use of hand weeding and using short-handled tools (Labor Presentation, "Minutes of Handweeding Advisory Committee").
68.
Cal-OSHA established a Hand Weeding Advisory Committee comprised of labor and grower representatives, which met for nine months.
69.
Mark Schacht, "Minutes of Handweeding Advisory Committee" (Sacramento , State of California Department of Industrial Relations, Occupational and Health Safety Standards Board, June 23, 2003), 4.
70.
Authors' interview with CCOF Representative, August 2003.
71.
Authors' interview with organic grower and CCOF Representative , March 2004.
72.
Ibid.
73.
Authors' interview with CRLAF Representative, April 2004.
74.
Western Growers is a grower trade association initially founded to fight labor organizing in the fields. Although it represents large and small growers, large-scale conventional interests dominate it.
75.
Authors' interview with organic grower and CCOF Representative , March 2004.
76.
State of California Legislative Council's Digest ( 2004).
77.
Authors' interview with organic grower, August 2003.
78.
Carl Borden, "Minutes of Handweeding Advisory Committee" (Sacramento , State of California Department of Industrial Relations, Occupational and Health Safety Standards Board, June 20, 2003), 9.
79.
Chris Bunn, "Minutes of Handweeding Advisory Committee" (Sacramento , State of California Department of Industrial Relations, Occupational and Health Safety Standards Board, February 6, 2003), 15.
80.
Jesus Lopez, "Minutes of Handweeding Advisory Committee" (Sacramento , State of California Department of Industrial Relations, Occupational and Health Safety Standards Board, February 6, 2003), 4.
81.
Authors' interview with organic grower, October 2007.
82.
A.G. Kawamura , "Minutes of Handweeding Advisory Committee" (Sacramento, State of California Department of Industrial Relations, Occupational and Health Safety Standards Board, March 24, 2003), 15.
83.
Authors' interview with CRLAF Representative, April 2004.
84.
California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, "Hand Weeding, Thinning, and Hot-Capping Regulation, Section 3456, Hand-Held Tools," http://www.dir.ca.gov/oshsb/handweedinglanguage.pdf (accessed November 17, 2007).
85.
For a thorough analysis of growers' perspectives on the inclusion of a social component in organics see, Shreck , Getz, and Feenstra, "Social Sustainability, Farm Labor, and Organic Agriculture." For a comprehensive overview of social certification initiatives, see Sandy Brown and Christy Getz, "Privatizing Farm Worker Justice: Regulating Labor through Voluntary Certification and Labeling," Geoforum (forthcoming).
86.
Authors' interview with representative of the Social Accountability in Sustainable Agriculture Project, July 2003.
87.
International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, "What is Organic Agriculture?" http://www.ifoam.org (accessed July 20, 2004).
88.
As an accrediting, not a certifying, body IFOAM Basic Standards are standards with which certifiers seeking accreditation must comply. IFOAM accreditation is most widely recognized in Europe.
89.
Authors' interview with sustainable agriculture researcher, August 2003; authors' interview with CCOF Representative, August 2003; authors' interview with farm labor advocate, June 2004.
90.
Authors' interview with sustainable agriculture researcher, March 2004.
91.
Richard Mandelbaum, "Testimony to the National Organic Standards Board," (February 9, 2003). USDA, "National Organic Program Final Rule," Washington DC: Federal Register , December 21, 2000.
92.
Authors' interview with organic grower and CCOF Representative, March 2004.
93.
The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 granted farm workers the right to organize, hold harvest-time elections, and bargain collectively, but farm workers in most states still are denied this right, even though workers in almost every other industry were granted it by the National Labor Relations Act signed in 1935.
94.
Shreck, Getz, and Feenstra, " Social Sustainability, Farm Labor, and Organic Agriculture."
95.
Authors' interview with CCOF Representative, August 2003.
96.
Kari Hamerschlag , "An Assessment of Market Viability for a Third-Party Certification and Eco-Label for California: An Analysis Prepared as Part of the Vivid Picture Project, a Project of Ecotrust and Affiliates, Requested by the Roots of Change Council, Funded by the Roots of Change Fund," http://www.VividPicture.net (accessed April 27, 2006). The report states that over 150 eco-labels have been established internationally, a majority over the past decade.
97.
Authors' interview with sustainable agriculture consultant, April 2006.
98.
Food Alliance, "Who We Are ," http://www.foodalliance.org (accessed April 17, 2006); Hamerschlag, "An Assessment of Market Viability"; Authors' interview with Food Alliance Representative, April 2006.
99.
The SASA project included representation of four accreditation and certification bodies: The Fair Trade Labeling Organization, IFOAM, the Rainforest Alliance, and Social Accountability International. For more information see http://www.isealalliance.org/sasa/ (accessed April 23, 2006).
100.
See Elizabeth Henderson, Richard Madelbaum, Oscar Mendieta, and Michael Sligh, "Toward Social Justice and Economic Equity in the Food System: A Call for Social Stewardship Standards in Sustainable and Organic Agriculture" (October 2003).
101.
Authors' interview with farm labor advocate, June 2004.
102.
Dana Frank , "Where are the Workers in Consumer-Labor Alliances? Class Dynamics and the History of Consumer-Labor Campaigns," Politics and Society31 (2003): 363-79.
103.
Food Alliance, "A Description of the Food Alliance Certification Program and Standards," http://www.foodalliance.org (accessed April 17, 2006).
104.
Authors' interview with Food Alliance Representative, April 2006.
105.
César Rodríguez-Garavito , "Global Governance and Labor Rights: Codes of Conduct and Anti-Sweatshop Struggles in Global Apparel Factories in Mexico and Guatemala" Politics and Society33, no. 2 (2005): 203-33.
106.
Elizabeth Barham, "Towards a Theory of Values-based Labeling ," Agriculture and Human Values19, no. 4 (2002): 349-260; Laura L. Raynolds, "Re-embedding Global Agriculture: The International Organic and Fair Trade Movements," Agriculture and Human Values17 ( 2000): 297-309.
107.
Teri L. Caraway , "Political Openness and Transnational Activism: Comparative Insights from Labor Activism," Politics and Society34 no. 2 ( 2006): 277-304; Dara O'Rourke, "Outsourcing Regulation: Analyzing Nongovernmental Systems of Labor Standards and Monitoring," Policy Studies Journal31, no. 1 (2003): 1-29.
108.
James McCarthy and Scott Prudham, "Neoliberal Nature and the Nature of Neoliberalism," Geoforum35 (2004): 276.
109.
Authors' interview with farm labor advocate, June 2004.
110.
Authors' interview with organic grower, March 2004.
111.
Authors' interview with sustainable agriculture researcher, March 2004.
112.
Authors' interview with sustainable agriculture researcher, August 2003.
113.
Authors' interview with organic grower, August 2003.
114.
British Columbia Certified Organic, "Reasons to Buy Organic," www.certifiedorganic.bc.ca/ReasonsToBuy/#b (accessed July 26, 2004); Organic Trade Association (2004).
115.
In addition to the hand-weeding bill, there have been other recent legislative moments. For example, sustainable agriculture and labor groups were on opposite sides of California legislation to require mediation in cases where contracts were not settled in a timely manner, according to a farm labor advocate interviewed April 2004.
