About the Author
Margaret Gray is assistant professor of the Department of Political Science.
Growing Families and Farms
Margaret Gray
gray5@adelphi.edu
A consequential change transpired on New York’s farms in the late 20th century in the shift from a primary African American to a largely Latino workforce. This change spawned new methods of labor control, increased the immigrant rural poor population in the state, and galvanized an advocacy campaign for farmworkers’ rights. My research investigates the factors that led to the increase of new Latino immigrants to New York farms and explains the implications of this demographic change for workers and immigrants, employers, and inequality in the region. It raises the question: “Should these issues concern consumers?” I offer here some thoughts for considering the issue in my current book-length project.
The emergent American food movement has championed both healthful eating and ecological protection, promoting ethical consumption and demanding a shift to sustainable agriculture. Once the exclusive realm of cosmopolitan urbanites, bohemians, and affluent suburbanites, the orbit of amateur foodies now includes the average consumer, who after consuming media report after media report on food advocacy issues, is increasingly inclined to demand alternative foods at reasonable prices.
Food writing generally targets the corporate profit motive and associated large-scale, monoculture farming methods as the obstacles to a wholesome body and planet. The prescriptive antidote is the small or family farm, which offers farm-to-table unprocessed products through greenmarkets, community supported agriculture (CSAs), food co-ops, and health food distribution outlets. Their glocal conscience awakened, when consumers eat nutritiously, they are also investing in land stewardship, and so they assume they are sustaining their regional foodshed.
In the public mind, small farms evoke deeply-rooted agrarian ideals such as self-sufficiency, autonomy, wholesomeness, and patriotism. Yet, despite this agrarian romanticism, the current immigration debate has made it clear that small farms, like their factory farm counterparts, are largely staffed by non-citizen immigrant workers: the undocumented and guestworkers. The insourcing of cheap immigrant labor, a longstanding practice in large farming states and metropolitan areas, has now encroached on smaller farming states, most service industries, and a range of suburban locations.
However, unlike environmental concerns, labor issues do not routinely show up on the foodie’s radar of collective discontent. To the extent that labor issues are ever addressed, food policy centers may highlight an occasional paper on their Web sites, but labor concerns are rarely grounded in their overriding policy goals. At a time when public consciousness is, for once, focused on the family farm, labor rights and workplace conditions should not be neglected.
My research on New York farmworkers, growers, and farmworker advocates seizes this opportunity, generated by the intense interest in food advocacy, sustainability, and immigration, to re-focus the public imagination, and spark a debate about the role of labor in the much-lionized small-scale agricultural economy. It will make the connections that the food movement could and should be making in raising awareness about how food is produced, distributed, and consumed. Through my analysis, I expect to show that environmental consciousness about our food cannot be advanced at the cost of labor rights. The health and security of agricultural workers are intrinsically linked with the integrity of discerning consumers who believe they are responsible planetary citizens. 
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