from agriculture are associated with increasing levels of poverty.36 Of the ten Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States with the highest proportion of residents on welfare, six are in CaliforniaUs agriculturally rich Central Valley.37 The welfare recipients are not farm workers--less than 1% of farm workers obtain support from public assistance.38 U.S. agricultural subsidies, originally established to stabilize and improve farmer incomes, have contributed to uneven income distributions. Since support programs link benefits to acreage historically under production, the primary beneficiaries of these programs are large land-owners. In 1992, 68% of U.S. government farm payments went to the wealthiest 19% of agricultural producers.39 Not only do farm programs disproportionately benefit larger farmers, they contain no provisions for farm worker incomes.40 While it is estimated that fewer than 500,000 households benefit from farm programs, those who pay are everyone else who pays both higher taxes and higher food prices that result from these programs.41 In 1986 government payments were sufficient to pay an equivalent of $42,000 to each commercial farm while the U.S. median family income was more than $14,000 lower than this figure.42 Between 1982 and 1988 higher food prices resulting from restricted supplies generated by farm programs cost U.S. consumers between $5 and $10 billion in indirect costs.43 It has been estimated that farm subsidies cost $400 or more per family.44 To justify this type of taxpayer support for agriculture, farm programs need to be targeted toward goals that benefit society as a whole, such as sustaining the resource base and increasing diversity in the food and agriculture sector. Labor Conditions in Food and Agriculture Workers in the U.S. food and agriculture industry--whether in the field or factory--not only receive low wages, they endure difficult, often dangerous working conditions. Few have received the benefits of profitable and abundant U.S. agriculture. U.S. farm workers do a large share of the work in agriculture. In California, for example, there are 18 farm workers for each farmer. Hired farm workers perform at least 80% of all the farm work in the State, for which they earn an average annual income of $3,000.45 One-third of U.S. farm laborers work in fields without drinking water, hand washing facilities or toilets.46 And at the end of the workday many farm workers do not have a home to go to. The only national data on farm worker housing show that in 1980, housing was available for only about one third of the estimated 1.2 million migrant farm workers who needed it.47 In California (the only state that has any data on occupational illness and injury rates for agricultural workers), farm workersU illness and injury rate is the highest of any occupation. 48 Many in sustainable agriculture have been concerned about pesticide residues in our food and water supplies. For those who work in the fields, pesticide exposure is even more direct, causing poisonings, reproductive problems, and death. A study of migrant children working on farms in New York state found that over 40% of farm worker children interviewed had worked in fields still wet with pesticides, and 40% had been sprayed while in the fields.49 Although there is no national system for tracking pesticide poisonings, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that each year hired farm workers suffer up to 300,000 acute illnesses and injuries from exposure to pesticides.50 This continues to be the case because older pesticides have been replaced by those that are less persistent in the environment and foods but more acutely toxic for workers.51 Much of the work in the food and agriculture industry is in factories rather than on farms. Working conditions in food processing vary, but workers in produce and meat processing industries are often poorly paid, seasonally terminated, have no benefits, and work under miserable conditions. In the 1980s, Iowa meat packing industry wages decreased regularly and in 1989 49% of Iowa meat packing workers suffered work-related injuries or illnesses.52 At a North Carolina chicken plant 25 workers were killed when they could not escape a fire because fire exits were locked to prevent workers from stealing chicken. A U.S. congressman summed up the situation, saying that this was an industry that decided to subsidize its profits "with the broken lives, limbs, lacerations, and decapitations of their workers."53 While the adoption of sustainable agriculture practices is likely to reduce worker exposure to toxic chemicals, there is little evidence that other problems such as low wages or poor housing will be resolved. The same alternative agriculture studies which detail natural phenomena such as plant/insect interactions tend to ignore human/human interactions, treating --- * Origin: [via Psychotronic BBS = Durham, NC = 919-286-4542]sustag- (1:3641/1) @PATH: 3641/1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (56) Thu 1 Dec 94 18:31 By: Lawrence F. London, Jr. To: All Re: 03:issue paper text (fwd) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- @MSGID: 1:3641/223 0006aa3f @PID GIGO+ sn 175 at psybbs vsn 0.99 pl1 @SPLIT: 04 Dec 94 14:29:11 @3641/223 6797 03/06 ++++++++++ From: london@calypso-2.oit.unc.edu (Lawrence F. London, Jr.) @Subject: issue paper text (fwd) Date: 1 Dec 1994 18:31:14 -0000 @Sender: daemon@bigblue.oit.unc.edu @Message-Id: @Mime-Version: 1.0 @Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII farm workers as just another cost of production,54 and overlooking workers in other aspects of the food and agriculture system. Distribution of Power and Decision Making in U.S. Agriculture Our current food and agriculture system is the result of the social structures, institutions, and processes which determine who makes decisions in food and agriculture and in whose interests these decisions are made. Historically, U.S. agricultural policy makers, business and farm-group leaders, researchers, and educators have been predominantly affluent European-American men. Women and people of color, who do much of the work in agriculture and represent a disproportionate percentage of the rural poor, are conspicuously absent in key agricultural decision-making positions. Skewed decision making is endemic to the federal legislature, which sets food and agricultural policy priorities. Only 11% of those in the House of Representatives and 7% of senators are women, most of them recently elected and thus the most junior and least powerful members of Congress.55 There are no Latinos or Native Americans and only one African American among the 100 members of the U.S. Senate. Of the 18 members of the powerful Senate Committee on Agriculture there are no women, no African Americans, and no Latinos. Government agencies related to agriculture have similarly homogenous gender and racial compositions. No other federal agency ranks lower in hiring and promoting minorities than the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and 98% of the local officials who run powerful USDA county and state committees are European-American men.56 In 1992, 89% of senior-level USDA employees were white and 82% were male.57 Rates for senior executives are even higher.58 The Congressional QuarterlyUs 1993 listing of agricultural agencies shows that 90% of those in powerful positions such as director, administrative officer, assistant secretary, and chairperson are men. In CaliforniaUs agriculture and resource state agencies, 15% of the professional-level employees are women and 23% are ethnic minorities.59 Other key decision makers in U.S. agriculture are researchers, who are central to shaping the direction of agriculture. Only a small proportion of these scientists are women or ethnic minorities, although their representation is increasing. In 1976, less than 1% of agricultural scientists were women and the agricultural sciences had the highest percentage of whites--98.6%--of all scientific fields in the United States.60 Ten years later, 7% of agricultural scientists were women (compared to 18% of all U.S. scientists) and 3% were African American, Native American, or Hispanic (the same percentage as for all scientists).61 The situation in private industry does not seem to be any better, particularly regarding women in management. According to a 1989 report, out of eleven major industries agriculture was the industry least likely to employ women as managers, executives, or administrators.62 Women employed in these positions made up less than 1% of the total managerial force in the agricultural industry.63 And, even though the number of women-owned businesses in agriculture has almost doubled since 1980, only one business sector (the transportation, communication, and utilities sector), had fewer women-owned businesses than agriculture. Individual perspectives, which arise out of differences in class, race, and gender experiences, play a pivotal role in what decision makers see as problems and solutions. Inevitably, decision-making groups which represent only a narrow range of perspectives can only address a narrow range of issues and possibilities. In order to achieve sustainability, agricultural instutions will need to become democratic, redressing long-standing inequities in who makes decisions in food and agriculture. Research Priorities in Food and Agriculture The research approaches we use in food and agriculture determine how problems are defined, how solutions are derived, which options are