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.

• 
• 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.