Tag Archives: agriculture

ENVIR 385: A Reflection

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My group had the opportunity to work with Landesa; a non-profit organization that helps secure land rights for the world’s poorest. Although Landesa covers a more general scope, our focus was to bring awareness to the issue of women land rights in underdeveloped countries, and to learn more about how it connects to resilience-building within communities in the face of a pandemic. 

We learned that the women in the regions we researched make up the vast majority of the agricultural workforce, but due to the huge gender disparity, the lack of land rights puts women in vulnerable positions, especially when facing a health crisis. If the patriarch falls ill or passes away, there isn’t much a woman can do to support her family. At least not with the current system.  

Women’s Land Rights infographic. (Created by Ashley Wright)

This quarter we talked about systems theory. We are all part of a system(s). If a part of the system is changed, then the other parts will be affected– impacting the system as a whole. This impact could either be negative or positive. Through our research we found that by giving women legal access to land, it could be the latter. They have the ability to help their communities build resilience by making an economic and ecological impact; all they need is change. The current status quo is an example of an unsustainable system.

Unsustainable systems are everywhere. We don’t have to go to an underdeveloped country to see them. Our food system is a big one. 

Individual, institutional, and structural racism lives in our food system. In the reading, “The Color of Food”, Raj Patel concludes that racial disparity in wages and representation can be found in most occupations along the food chain. POC are often limited to low-wage food jobs in the food industry, leading them to experience high rates of food insecurity, malnutrition and hunger. But consumers are oftentimes unaware of these exploitations because there is a great disconnect between consumers and the food chain. 

The Color of Food, Raj Patel

With the BLM movement in full force right now, it is important to understand that racism goes beyond just police brutality. It lives in different parts of our society. 

As this class comes to an end and our projects wrap up, I can’t help but think about the systems I belong to and the impact I’m having on them. Raj Patel stated that, “consumers vote with their purchases”. As a consumer in this unsustainable system, my choices matter when it comes to food. 

Women’s Land Rights and the Pandemic

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For our action project, we worked with Landesa. We focused our efforts on connecting the current pandemic to the role of women’s land rights and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. We concentrated on this region, as it has faced the epidemics of HIV/AIDS and Ebola, and has had to overcome these crises while dealing with the ongoing natural problems that are endemic to the climate and region (drought and political instability). Additionally, the region has long-suffered from exploitation and pressures of global imbalances of power. What has become evident, is that developed countries are able to leverage local resources, which are developed and cultivated by African nations to advance their own stability and serve as a source of resilience. Against this backdrop, the region will continue to evolve as “an arena of geopolitical and resource competition…” and this can be problematic, as Africa may be disenfranchised from ‘solutions’ that are developed within the region. This is where the role of women’s land rights becomes a driver of law and policy reform and economic self-reliance and community leadership. Allowing women to have direct and impactful roles in the food system will foster a resistive and durable base that the communities of Africa can count on for stability and lean on in times of crises.

An infographic created for our Landesa Project (Graphic by Ashley Wright)

What I have recognized in Landesa is that many of the defining attributes and workings of systems theory are functioning through this organization and the work it is doing to make an impact on society. We were able to connect seemingly individual and distinct topics into an aggregate context relevant to human systems and, by extension, the ecosystem. (from lecture) What is common across developed, developing, emerging, and underdeveloped economies is growth. This trend towards an improved standard of living does not emerge in isolation. In this case, women’s land rights connect to all of us, even if we benefit indirectly. Through a woman’s ability to own and control land in Africa, the role of my country (or another developed country) will shift as it benefits from concurrent growth. And this shift can impact my community whether it is through the flow of money or access to food as a whole. We all benefit from socio-political stability, as instability can result in a misallocation of resources. Currently the IMF projects negative growth for the region through this year, but forecasts a return to positive growth through 2021.

In Response to “A Plague Overlooked: The locust crisis lurking in the shadow of COVID-19”

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In response to this blog post.

I chose to respond to Cameron’s blog post because it uncovers a serious crisis currently in the shadow of COVID-19 news. Their post describes the large swarms of locusts overtaking farmland throughout the Horn of Africa. As of May 13th the locusts continue to spread rapidly; officials warn they may migrate east as far as the Indo-Pakistan border and even to West Africa.   

Map showing possible Desert Locust Spread, fao.org

How international organizations are addressing this crisis closely relates our study of the global food economy. Developing countries (like those on the Horn of Africa) face comparatively more severe repercussions from an agricultural crisis like this than in developed countries. Agriculture comprises a much higher portion of their GDP and they lack sufficient resources to respond to such a disaster. The locust swarms are also infesting extremely food insecure nations like South Sudan. Then why has funding been slow and insufficient? Historically (and still today) international trade institutions are manipulated so that the world food system works in favor of developed nations. As discussed by Clapp,  developed countries dump their subsidized food in global markets while developing countries struggle to compete with the cheap costs. There seems to be little international movement towards helping the region during this crisis. Developing countries continue to lack influence in intergovernmental organizations like the U.N yet are facing increasingly devastating environmental crises like this one.

Locusts swarm through East Africa

This issue therefore clearly connects to the idea of “triple inequality” discussed in class. As Cameron mentions, climate change has been linked to the locust swarms. The affected countries have had little historical influence on global warming, yet pay the brunt of the climate costs while having little capacity to adapt and respond to this disaster. The “triple inequality” theory, in combination with the structuring of international organizations and the world food system overall, elucidates how the system is stacked against these developing countries. Sufficient funding should be provided in response to this crisis, but we must also think of larger reforms that reshape these global systems by putting power into the hands of climate change threatened countries. How can we reform these systems so that they are fair, just, and work for all, not just the most powerful?

Food Security, COVID-19, and the Future of Land Ownership in Yemen

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In response to: “Womxn, Food, and Security Amid COVID-19 in Yemen” by Amber Torell

Amber’s post addressed the impact of COVID-19 on a group of under-represented and vulnerable people in one of the least developed countries in the world. Sadly, Yemen was a country in crisis before COVID-19. To gain a deeper understanding of the food-aid dimension of the global response to the Yemeni crisis, I visited the USAID website. USAID contributes to the UN WFP and supports NGOs in Yemen. Citing the same geo-political concerns as the WFP, USAID announced their reduction in aid to Yemen, specifically in Houthi dominated regions. Food aid represents an immediate desperate need and signifies a systemic failure in the region. Productive assets, including labor and land, are simply not being used to produce food. To be sure, “Land so pervasively underpins human activity that it usually plays some role during war and civil violence.” (Land and Conflict)

Yemen’s civil war is a factional conflict that has evolved into a humanitarian crisis. For civilians, a sustained state of conflict will put the focus on survival and meeting basic human needs, including food and shelter. Disenfranchised groups may be further marginalized and will need to achieve significant gains politically in order to establish power. Specifically, the role of women in poverty-ridden communities connects to my NGO – Landesa. My group is exploring the impact of COVID-19 on women’s land rights, as it is creating additional economic uncertainty. An imbalance we observe is that women farmers comprise a large majority of those who work directly in agricultural, yet only a fraction of those women are actual landowners. While in the short-run, advocating for women’s involvement in the Yemeni government could result in political unrest, having more women as stakeholders could help stabilize the country and its response to the crisis and lay the groundwork for future changes in rural land rights.

From FAO of the United Nations http://www.fao.org/gender/resources/infographics/the-female-face-of-farming/en/

 

 

Raisins are a Cover-Up Story

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When I was young, I would make these raisin apple cinnamon muffins. Biting into the delicious treat I made and tasting the sweet yet sour raisins on my tongue, I never realized how a such a simple food can represent something so immense.

The Sun-Maid Raisins commercial describes their raisin-making process as simply using grapes and sunshine. What they fail to convey, however, is the fact that there are people hard at work doing strenuous labor. If not, the industrialization of agriculture destabilized the the job market for a substantial amount of people. This kind of cover-up has happened and continues to happen all over the world. For example, while the world is focusing on buying toilet paper and stocking up on goods, minority groups are getting their organs harvested forcefully while still being alive. This has further reminded me that the media will do almost anything to create a distraction from things that need to be focused on as well. Some questions I will continue to ask myself from this point on is what other things are going on besides this that deserve attention additionally? How can I help bring these stories out for others to hear and be aware of?

 

This contemplative practice at first felt slightly unproductive to my time. However, creating these connections to the outside world and what I can do to help make this world a better place for everyone living in it. I did not find a lot of linkage between what I have learned in this contemplative practice and what we have learned in this class as a whole. Altogether, although these mediations and contemplative practices may seem ineffective, it can open your mind to a world of new ideas.

Works Cited:

Smith, Saphora. “China Forcefully Harvests Organs from Detainees, Tribunal Concludes.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 18 June 2019, www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646.

Contemplative practices highlight the lack of compassion in America in the time of COVID.

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Amidst the uncertainty and frustration in the time of COVID, I found my reactions to our contemplative practices to reflect these emotions. During the “like a raisin in the sun” exercise, I felt agitated by the Sunmaid Raisins Hollywood commercial. The commercial associated California raisins with the glamour of Hollywood, but much like its’ glowing description of Hollywood, it failed to account for their deeply troubling underlying issues. As we learned through our coursework, the modern production of raisins relies on the routinization of labor, including the exploitation of migrant workers. One of the raisin production videos showed individual workers harvesting raisins, but the subsequent video depicted the Korvan mechanical grape harvester doing the work instead. This made me consider the fate of the migrant worker, while their jobs may be unpleasant, they are still being displaced by the mechanization of labor and are losing what little work they can find.

Direct capture

Finally, hearing Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem,” written in the face of horrific oppression during the Civil Rights movement made me think about the bravery exhibited by black activists during that time and made me frustrated with the rampant anti-quarantine protests occurring today. Privileged people throughout our country are protesting for their “freedom” amidst lock-down orders, and what saddens me is that they have mistaken science-based, lifesaving measures as oppression and are mobilizing against it while many of them stand idly by while our political system facilitates hunger amongst racial and economic minorities. I am especially disturbed by these issues now with the virus exacerbating the systemic food insecurity of vulnerable people. Though I am hopeful that one day we will remedy these issues, I am disappointed in the priorities of our fellow Americans, and know we have a ways to go.

Link to Sunmaid Raisins Hollywood commercial: https://youtu.be/cJZcFq8ige8

Undocumented farmworkers are left at high risk for COVID-19

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The migrant farmworkers are at high risk of coronavirus outbreak and are unprotected. In the US, 47 to 70 percent of total farmworkers are undocumented. Many undocumented farmworkers are facing the problem of unsanitary and crowded labor camps and transportation. They are not offered with additional training or instructions for disinfection or social distancing by their employers. Moreover, there is no federal guidelines that tell farmers what to do if they don’t have quarantine space for sick workers or where accessible and affordable health care services are. 

     The migrant farmworkers are not treated as essential workers they are by the federal government before this global pandemic. Undocumented farmworkers are excluded from Fair Labor Act of 1938 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1835. Although state level laws have provided more protections for farmworkers, there is not enough guarantee of farmworkers rights under federal laws. Migrant farmworkers are experiencing the hardship of low hour pay, inaccessible health care services, bad living conditions and fear of deportation.       

     As the workers who put food in the markets and an indispensable role of the supply chain in the food system, farmworkers should be protected. I hope the COVID-19 outbreak can let the federal government acknowledge that farmworkers are critical to the U.S. economy and consider legislation to give the rights and protection they deserve. Under the pandemic, the farmworkers need to be provided with protection gears and hygiene products. They also need enough housing for quarantine, affordable testing of coronavirus and medical care services. If the backbone of our agricultural industry becomes affected, there will be shortages and interruptions in our food supply. If farmworkers are sick, who is going to harvest America’s food and what will happen to our food supply?

(Sources of Articles)

Liza Gross, Esther Honig. 2020. Migrant farmworkers feed America, they’re at high risk for a coronavirus outbreak. https://thefern.org/2020/03/migrant-farmworkers-feed-america-and-theyre-at-high-risk-for-a-coronavirus-outbreak/

Danny Hajek. 2020. Farmworkers, seemed essential, don’t feel protected from pandemic. 

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/824358228/farmworkers-deemed-essential-dont-feel-protected-from-pandemic

(Image)

Tim Padgett. Undocumented Migrants: If we’re “essential” workers during COVID-19, why detain us? https://www.wlrn.org/post/undocumented-migrants-if-were-essential-workers-during-covid-19-why-detain-us#stream/0

The Right to Privacy, Free Speech, and a Humane Life

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The family farm. Rolling green pastures, a red barn, and calves running around with their moms before stopping to suckle. This is where Americans picture their food comes from. What they don’t realize, however, is how many carefully crafted laws there are to keep farming and ranching out of the public eye and away from accusation. I recently went to a family dairy farm. The reality was they owned 3,000 dairy cows, the males sold to an industrial beef farm, the mothers spent 4-5 years standing on wood, sand, and manure before being sold for to an industrial slaughterhouse, and the calves were separated from their mothers the day they’re born.

The news about what is happening and how misleading this industry is gets exemplified through Ag-gag laws. Ag-gag laws are laws that essentially prohbit any recording of what happens on these farms and in slaughterhouses. As per the persecutor’s discretion, filming what happens, even if the footage displays illegal treatment of the animals, can have you tried for terrorism. Many states have begun overturning these ag-gag laws as being unconstitutional due to the first amendment’s freedom of speech as well as offering protection for when abuse is discovered.

https://fernnews-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/01.Slider-Texas-dust.jpg

Yet this year, an article came out on Food and Environment Reporting Network stating that it is now illegal to take drone footage of feedlots in Texas. You are allowed to charter a plane to film, but that is an incredibly expensive venture compared to a drone. The industry argues it is to protect themselves and their private properties. The reporters argue it is still a violation of the first amendment and keeps the public blind to the conditions the animals live in so they don’t have the opportunity to make educated choices when shopping.

What do you think? After reading personal and professional perspectives, do you believe these laws are just? Or do you believe they are in violation of the first amendment and prevent consumers from learning exactly where their food is coming from? Are they there for the small family farmers? Or the industrial agriculturalists who dominate the American meat and dairy market?

Personally, I believe this is just one of the real costs of cheap food.

“Essential Workers”: Heroes or a Sacrifice to Capitalism ?

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In the face of major shifts and/or unrest both global and domestic, the US has historically relied on the most marginalized groups to uphold the status quo; an aspect of our history that is too often left out of, or skewed within, popular narratives. An example ringing with familiarity, was the onset of WWII (when swaths of the agricultural labor force migrated into war production factories) the 1942 Mexican Farm Labor Program Act systematically promoted the exploitation of immigrant labor as a means to keep meeting food demands on the backs of “cheap” labor. Our immigrant workers are a labor force that has been consistently condemned, ridiculed, and cast out. And again, today, in the face of a global pandemic, we are turning to the numerous undocumented immigrants that make up our 2.4 million farmworkers to continue to supply us with our demands (Honig, 2020). They are essential to keeping America fed.

Yet, as the choir of bells ring through our cities in gratitude to those who are on the front lines, these essential workers continue to work unprotected in close quarters, high risk conditions, and extremely limited access to testing or health care. And when calls are made to solve these issues, and to provide adequate provisioning, they are too often being met with no answer. Ultimately, they are being ignored. Still though, the faces of leadership turn to the media to give praise and show appreciation of our essential workers… our “heroes.”

Is this the way to treat our heroes? Do we truly believe that these people put themselves at risk everyday, in-spite of the love of their families and own lives, to be our “heroes?” Or have they been given no other choice, no other option to sustain themselves, or their families? And, in knowing this well, the faces of leadership can chose to tend to their need or not. The migrant workers, who have always been an essential labor force, are treated as if they are disposable. This pandemic is not an independent actor, it is constantly being fed by the conditions that were already established, long before it’s outbreak. Vulnerable living conditions, limited access to health care, muted voices, and insufficient ground to establish self-determination are the by-products of our capitalist structure that continues to sustain itself through the most marginalized people, who tend to fill our most essential positions.

 

This blog post was inspired by the FERN article: https://thefern.org/2020/04/as-pandemic-spreads-and-growing-season-ramps-up-farmworkers-deemed-essential-but-still-largely-unprotected/

Wasted Bounty: A Tale of Food All Grown Up and Nowhere To Go

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Squash left to rot in the field. Florida City, Fla. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images via Politico

A wedge of purple cabbage is rediscovered at the bottom of the crisper drawer, wilted and slimy. I feel guilty for having forgotten its existence as I toss it into the compost bucket. What a luxurious problem to have – food going to waste. During an already stressful and scary time, the coronavirus pandemic is revealing both weaknesses and potential strengths in our food system, particularly in terms of food insecurity and waste. In a recent article published by the Food & Environment Reporting Network, author Elizabeth Royte discusses a shift in U.S. food waste patterns and rising food insecurity. More people are relying on food banks during this economic crisis, but grocery stores and food producers are selling what would have historically been surplus donated to food banks. School closures and reduced restaurant operations mean broken channels for farmers and falling prices for things like milk and asparagus, resulting in product dumping and produce left to rot in fields.

Is worrying about food waste trivial given everything else going on right now? Perhaps this is an opportunity to strengthen food networks and food justice. We can’t ignore so much wasted bounty at a time when the number of those in need is rising daily. It’s a time to demand higher working and living conditions for those who grow our food. Might we grow from these challenging times and advocate towards living wages and a future of food security? As market channels are disrupted and the future of food supplies are vulnerable, we must find ways of strengthening localized food networks to increase system resilience

There are on-the-ground and top-down efforts underway. Grassroots organizations across the country are working to connect surplus with need. The recent stimulus bill included aid for the USDA to purchase and deliver food to banks. This is not a drill. This is an opportunity for identifying system breakdowns and rebuilding a stronger, healthier food future.

 

 

 

 

Sources

Purdy, Chase. “Asparagus Prices Show How the Coronavirus Is Nipping at the Global Food System.” Quartz, Quartz, 11 Apr. 2020, qz.com/1836376/falling-asparagus-prices-show-coronavirus-impact-on-global-food-system/.

Royte, Elizabeth. “Food Waste–and Food Insecurity–Rising amid Coronavirus Panic.” Food and Environment Reporting Network, Food and Environment Reporting Network, 31 Mar. 2020, thefern.org/2020/03/food-waste-and-food-insecurity-rising-amid-coronavirus-panic/.

Yaffe-bellany, David, and Michael Corkery. “Dumped Milk, Smashed Eggs, Plowed Vegetables: Food Waste of the Pandemic.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Apr. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-destroying-food.html.