agriculture

Climate Policy Needs a Return to Land Reform

by Jo Guldi

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations' international development agenda took its cues from struggles for decolonization from Ireland to India, making the redistribution of rural land a top priority. Is this the key to more effective climate change mitigation? 

Why Meat and Masculinity are a New Culture War Front

by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg

The recent embrace of conspiracy theories around food consumption—liberals want to make us eat insects!—show how a sense of imperiled masculinity is being used to stop necessary conversations about making the food system safe, sustainable, and humane. 

The Power and Betrayal of Cross-Ethnic Solidarity in the 1903 Oxnard Beet Strike

by Frank P. Barajas

The Japanese Mexican Labor Association overcame the deliberate ethnic division of the farm labor force in Oxnard, California to win a major strike in the sugar beet fields in 1903, overcoming violent repression. Anti-Asian prejudice in the broader labor movement ended this successful experiment to the detriment of generations of workers. 

That Sad Viral Story of a Goat Shows Ethical Void of the Meat Industry

by Gabriel Rosenberg and Jan Dutkiewicz

Cedar the goat has a name. Millions of other farm animals don't, and industry spends a lot of money to keep it that way, while obscuring the ideological work that goes into convincing Americans that animals are only meat. 

"The Dawn of Everything" Stretches its Evidence, But Makes Bold Arguments about Human Social Life

by Frank A. Palmeri

David Graeber and David Wengrow seek to pull less hierarchical and more egalitarian and sustainable forms of settlement and social organization out of the frame of utopia and into the narrative of human history. To the extent they succeed, they show humanity today has the choice to organize ourselves for survival. 

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act Raises Troubling Echoes

by Matt Garcia

The support of the United Farm Workers for the bill cuts against the organization's origins in opposition to the Bracero guestworker program, and signals its shift toward advocacy of global responsibility initiatives in the food supply chain. Other labor organizations believe the bill would reestablish indentured servitude in farm work. 

From the Archives: Bob Maurer on Charles Sherrod and New Communities Farm

Nearly 50 years ago, activist Robert Maurer reported on the successes and challenges of a Georgia agricultural cooperative conceived as a step toward securing Black economic empowerment in the post-civil rights South. 

Charles Sherrod: An Unheralded Giant of the Civil Rights Struggle

by Ansley L. Quiros

"Charles Sherrod is the most important civil rights figure you've never heard of"--fighting for six decades in southwest Georgia, persevering through incremental gains after the publicity of the Albany Movement faded. 

New Archaeology of Lost Crops Shows the Reign of Corn Wasn't Inevitable

The establishment of corn as the center of indigenous American agriculture was slow; researchers are considering how other crops could have come to dominate the American food system.

Anthropologists: Heartland Imagery Distorts History of Midwest, Elevates Whites as Real Americans

Heartland imagery depends on images of white individuals and families obscure the forces of migration and industrialization that shaped the region and reinforce an image of rural whites as ideal citizens, argue two anthropologists. 

How the Government Aided and Abetted the Theft of Black-Owned Farmland

A group of scholars estimates more than 300 billion dollars in lost land wealth by Black farm families over the course of the 20th century, with less tangible but still significant losses in economic security and political influence. 

No Land, No Life: The Structure of Debilitating Black Land Loss in the South

by Annelise Straw

Despite pledges of aid by the Biden administration, access to credit remains an obstacle for African American farmers, who continue to face the loss of land and its attendant financial and emotional losses.

New History of Chicanos in Ventura County

Historian Frank Barajas discusses his new book on Chicano activism in California's Ventura County with columnist Gustavo Arellano.

Superweeds are Here

After a generation of use, agricultural herbicides have pushed weeds to evolve resistance. Industrial agriculture may be at risk. 

The Obscure Case That Could Blow Up American Civil-Rights and Consumer-Protection Laws

Law professor Eduardo Peñalver argues that the case of Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid which challenges a 1975 California law allowing labor organizers limited access to private agricultural land to speak to workers, could apply a radical version of the "takings" doctrine to block many kinds of labor, consumer, and civil rights law. 

UC Merced Acquires Photo Collection Documenting Farmworkers In The 1960s

Historian Mario Sifuentez discusses the photographs of Ernest Lowe and the activism of Central Valley farm workers. 

The Enduring Disposability Of Latinx Workers

by Natalia Molina

"For over a century, we have excused systemic inequalities, justifying them by pointing to Mexicans’ difference from 'us'."

Meet the Mexican Workers Who Helped Feed America During World War II

Portland State history professor Marc Rodriguez discusses how the program addressed the United States' agricultural labor needs and started the settlement of Latino communities in new parts of the nation. 

Verónica Martínez-Matsuda on Her New Book, Migrant Citizenship

"[Farm Security Administration officials and migrant farm laborers] argued that real democracy resulted not only from migrants’ full enfranchisement but also from their daily participation as citizens (regardless of formal status) in a political and social community characterized by collective responsibility and behavior."

'The Saddest, Bitterest Thing of All.’ From the Great Depression to Today, a Long History of Food Destruction in the Face of Hunger

As advocates mark World Hunger Day on May 28, experts and officials around the world are hoping they can avoid adding mass hunger to the list of parallels many have seen between the 1930s and today.