agriculture

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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'."

• 
• 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. 

• 
• 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."

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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.

• 
• 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.

• 
• 4/5/2020
  

  Pandemic Exposes Vulnerabilities of Workers on Farms

  by Verónica Martínez-Matsuda

  Defying the broader conservative political forces of the time, the Farm Security Administration extended health care to tens of thousands of migratory agricultural workers because it understood that farmworkers’ health was vital to the nation’s wellbeing.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/31/2020
  

  During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Immigrant Farmworkers are Heroes

  by Eladio Bobadilla

  Tracing Cesar Chavez's transforming views on immigration may shed light on how we can support farmworkers’ rights today.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/13/20
  

  Donald Trump’s continued assault on government workers betrays American farmers

  by Louis A. Ferleger

  Government scientists made U.S. agriculture powerful, but Trump administration cuts could undermine it.

• 
• 12/22/19
  

  Subsidies Can't Solve Farmers' Trade War Losses

  by Jared Levinson

  Subsidies during the Great Depression and in the current trade war. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/19/19
  

  Why President Trump gutting the USDA’s research service is so dangerous

  by Jamie Pietruska

  Since the 19th century, Americans have benefited from access to rigorous, unbiased statistics about our foodways.    

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  Accessed 8/20/19
  

  The Great Land Robbery

  by Vann R. Newkirk II

  A war waged by deed of title has dispossessed 98 percent of black agricultural landowners in America.