Rural California Report

Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, California, shares his research on the widely used herbicide Atrazine and its disturbing effects on frogs, the environment, and on public health. We learn that Atrazine is the most widely used herbicide in North America. Atrazine is used throughout the United States to control weeds in agricultural fields, residential lawns, Christmas tree farms, and, golf courses, despite evidence of its toxic nature. Professor Hayes’ research published in Narture magazine shows that there is enough Atrazine in rainwater in Iowa to make male frogs “yolk eggs in their testes.” This module shows what can happen when a company in Switzerland is allowed to market their products in America when they can not be sold in Switzerland or most of Europe.

There is a contradiction of US interests opposing child labor in the international context while allowing agricultural exceptionalism to undermine child labor protections here in the US. Agriculture is the largest employer of children worldwide.  According to the UNFAO, “Poverty and child labor interact in a vicious cycle and are mutually reinforcing. In rural areas, there is need to fight poverty and hunger in order to fight child labor.”

Photo from Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs

In 2011, some notable government actions influenced immigration policy across the US.  The federal Secure Communities program came under fire, five more states, following Arizona’s lead, enacted independent immigration laws and deportations reached an unprecedented high level.

The following excerpts are from Chapter Nine of the new book: Food Movements Unite! Strategies to Transform Our Food System, edited by Eric Holt-Giménez, Executive Director of Food First.  The chapter from which these sections were taken is the result of an in-depth interview with Lucas Benítez from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).  The entire book examines the power of people to transform our food systems.  It argues that the global food movement is as creative and powerful as it is diverse and widespread.  Twenty-one authors from across the globe come together in this book to examine strategies for uniting efforts to create a powerful “movement of movements.”  The goal of their work is to bring healthy, affordable food to the world’s population that neither harms people nor planet. The authors address the corporatization of our food regime and offer practical and political approaches to change that are committed to democracy, justice, sustainability and food sovereignty. In short, this book is a roadmap to a brighter food future drawn by some of the most visionary activists on the planet.

 Gail Wadsworth and Lisa Kresge

“The green grass spreads right into the tent doorways and the orange trees are loaded. In the cotton fields, a few wisps of the old crop cling to the black stems. But the people who picked the cotton, and cut the peaches and apricots, who crawled all day in the rows of lettuce and beans, are hungry. The men who harvested the crops of California, the women and girls who stood all day and half the night in the canneries, are starving.”  -- John Steinbeck, 1936, Final Essays

Across the United States, farmworkers are having difficulty getting enough to eat. And they’re not alone: rural communities as a whole are poorer and less able to feed themselves than their urban counterparts. It is ironic that in regions where our food is being grown, access to food is limited and the people who grow it are unable to afford it when it is available. For farmworkers, lack of transportation, fear and other social issues increase their isolation and limit their food choices even more.  The food security movement, working to increase access for communities at risk of hunger, tends to overlook rural people and especially those who work in the fields.

The RCR was started in 1989 to serve as an outlet for articles, descriptions of new publications and a clearing house for information on rural labor and poverty.  It was built around the Working Group on Farm Labor and Rural Poverty established at that time.  Although CIRS no longer maintains that group, we are building a group of experts who will help us, on a weekly basis, to update this spot with news and information about rural California.  We are seeking new voices to add to our discussion.