agriculture 
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1/22/2022
"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.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
12/14/2022
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.
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SOURCE: Facing South
11/15/2022
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.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
10/13/2022
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.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
10/1/2022
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.
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SOURCE: Sapiens
8/23/2022
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.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
5/5/2022
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.
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1/16/2022
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.
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SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
8/27/2021
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.
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SOURCE: New York Times
8/18/2021
Superweeds are Here
After a generation of use, agricultural herbicides have pushed weeds to evolve resistance. Industrial agriculture may be at risk.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
3/25/2021
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.
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SOURCE: Valley Public Radio
12/11/2020
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.
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SOURCE: Public Books
11/20/2020
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'."
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SOURCE: KGW8
10/2/2020
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.
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SOURCE: Labor and Working Class History Association
7/23/2020
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."
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SOURCE: TIME
5/28/2020
'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.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
5/22/2020
Immigrant Workers Have Borne the Brunt of COVID-19 Outbreaks at Meatpacking Plants
by Anya Jabour
The COVID-19 epidemic should remind us of the hazards faced by immigrant meatpacking workers a century ago, and the labor and industry reforms needed to secure their safety.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
5/1/2020
Meatpacking Work has Become Less Safe. Now it Threatens Our Meat Supply
by Chris Deutsch
The modern food system rests on a thin reed of worker abuse and poor sanitation that covid-19 has finally broken.
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5/3/2020
If Farmworkers Are “Essential,” Why Are They Treated So Badly?
by Lawrence Wittner
Farmworkers are essential. Our government, businesses and laws treat them as expendable.
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SOURCE: New Yorker
4/13/2020
The Pandemic Is Not a Natural Disaster
by Kate Brown
Zoonotic diseases can seem like earthquakes; they appear to be random acts of nature. In fact, they are more like hurricanes—they can occur more frequently, and become more powerful, if human beings alter the environment in the wrong ways.
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