The new Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture is working toward fundamental reforms in federal food and agriculture policy. Recognizing the piecemeal and inequitable process which heretofore has determined national agricultural policy, the Campaign actively seeks to diversify the people and interests which will contribute to the formation of the 1995 Farm Bill. Women and ethnic minorities play significant roles in the Campaign, which is composed of hundreds of grassroots and national organizations and includes representation of family farmers, environmentalists, farm workers, consumers, and animal protection advocates.73 By including those who have previously had little or no voice in national agricultural policy, the Campaign orients its approach to sustainability to include social as well as environmental goals. In addition to conservation-oriented policy options, the Campaign supports those focused on social justice, such as ending discrimination against minority farmers and improving wages and working conditions for farm workers. Integrating Women into Agricultural Decision Making At a time when the agricultural work force, particularly in transportation and distribution, is mostly male, an innovative company in San Francisco is working to change that. Veritable Vegetable, the oldest U.S. distributor of organic produce and a company which actively promotes sustainable agriculture, uses a form of participatory management in which all workers have input into decision making. The success of this business shows womenUs competence in areas of the agricultural work force from which they have been excluded. Women are hired for every aspect of distribution, including loading produce, driving trucks, and management. By advocating gender equity, this group hopes to bring new awareness of these issues to farmers, store owners, and other individuals throughout the chain of agricultural relations.74 A Broad-Based Coalition of Sustainability Organizations The California Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture (CASA) is a new coalition created through the assistance of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The development of CASA is based on the recognition that redirecting agricultural policy and practice onto a more sustainable path can only be accomplished if diverse groups find ways to work together constructively. The goal of CASA, which brings together nonprofit and university groups, is to "build food and agriculture systems that provide everyone with sufficient, healthy food; create just and humane social relations; and promote communities suited to the constraints of their TnaturalU environments." CASA is working toward analysis of the obstacles to sustainability and community-based actions to create a sustainable and equitable food and agriculture system. A FINAL NOTE As we work toward sustainability, which and whose needs we decide to address and which social structures we decide to sustain will determine our future food and agriculture system. The priorities we choose will carry important implications not only for the environment, but for the lives of people occupying different positions within the food and agriculture system. Many people will continue to suffer degradation in the shadow of a sustainability vision focused on the environment unless we expand our vision to include all people. We need to focus on interactions not only between people and the environment but also among people in different jobs, cultures, and socio-economic positions. Unless we do, our efforts to conserve and replenish the agricultural resource base are likely to falter, and many of our societyUs children will continue to go hungry--a condition no one would choose to sustain. NOTES 1 For a more theoretical approach to social issues in sustainable agriculture see Patricia Allen, Food for the Future: Conditions and Contradictions of Sustainability, (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1993). 2 Paul F. OUConnell, "Sustainable Agriculture," in Agriculture and the Environment: The 1991 Yearbook of Agriculture, edited by Deborah Takiff Smith (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991), 176. 3 Cheryl Miller, Issues in Sustainable Agriculture: What Are the Next Steps?, Michael Fields Agricultural Institute Bulletin no. 2, report on a symposium held in June 1991 (East Troy, WI: MFAI Inc, 1992), 6-7. 4 United Nations World Food Council, "The Global State of Hunger and Malnutrition: 1990 Report," Sixteenth Ministerial Session held in Bangkok, Thailand (United Nations, 10 April 1990, photocopied), 1. 5 James Gustave Speth, "A New U.S. Program for International Development and the Global Environment," Issues and Ideas, World Resources Institute (March 1992): 2. 6 John Cook and J. Larry Brown, "30 Million Hungry Americans," Analysis prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Hunger (Medford, MA: Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition Policy, Tufts University, 1992). 7 Laurie True, "Hunger in the Balance: The Impact of the Proposed AFDC Cuts on Childhood Hunger in California," California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (San Francisco, CA: CRLA, March 1992, photocopied), 2. 8 Richard A. Hoehn, "United States," in Hunger 1992: Second Annual Report on the State of World Hunger (Washington, D.C.: Bread for the World Institute on Hunger and Development, 1991), 158. 9 Telephone interview with Desmond Jolly, Agricultural Economist, University of California, Davis, May 4, 1994. 10 Linda Ashman et al., Seeds of Change: Strategies for Food Security for the Inner City, prepared for the Southern California Interfaith Hunger Coalition (Los Angeles: Interfaith Hunger Coalition, 1993), exec. sum. 11 U.S. Department of Agriculture, A Profile of Female Farmers in America, prepared for the Economic Research Service by Judith Z. Kalbacher, Rural Development Research Report no. 45 (Herndon, VA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, January 1985), 3. 12 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Vol. 3, Related Surveys, Part 2, Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey 1988, Change Sheet, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), table 66, p. 225. 13 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Market Value of Agricultural Products Sold 1987, 1982, and 1978, Geographic Area Series, Part 5: California State and County Data (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), table 2, p. 9. 14 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Rural Economy Division, Economic Research Service, Economic Indicators of the Farm --- * Origin: [via Psychotronic BBS = Durham, NC = 919-286-4542]sustag- (1:3641/1) @PATH: 3641/1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- (58) Thu 1 Dec 94 18:31 By: Lawrence F. London, Jr. To: All Re: 05:issue paper text (fwd) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- @MSGID: 1:3641/223 0006aa41 @PID GIGO+ sn 175 at psybbs vsn 0.99 pl1 @SPLIT: 04 Dec 94 14:29:11 @3641/223 6797 05/06 ++++++++++ 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 Sector: National Financial Summary 1992, ECIFS 12-1 (Herndon, VA: U.S.D.A., January 1994), calculated from table 49. 15 U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Technology, Public Policy, and the Changing Structure of American Agriculture, OTA-F-285 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 1986), 91. 16 A.V. Krebs, "AmericaUs New TCentrally PlannedU Food Economy," Prairie Journal, Prairie Fire Rural Action (Des Moines, IA: Summmer 1992) :6-7. 17 Bruce W. Marion, The Organization and Performance of the U.S. Food System, (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1986), 295. 18 Frederick E. Geithman and Bruce Marion, "Testing for Market Power in Supermarket Prices: A Review of the Kaufman-Handy/ERS Study," in Competitive Strategy Analysis in the Food System, edited by Ronald W. Cotterill (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), 253. 19 U.S. Department of Agriculture, A Profile of Female Farmers in America, prepared for the Economic Research Service by Judith Z. Kalbacher, Rural Development Research Report no. 45 (Herndon, VA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, January 1985), 3. 20 U.S. Bureau of Census, Agricultural Economics and Land Ownership Survey, 1988. Also cited in Anne B.W. Effland , Denise M. Rogers, and Valerie Grimm, "Women as Agricultural Landowners: What Do We Know About Them?" Agricultural History 67, no. 2 (Spring 1985): 245. 21 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 Census of Population, United States Summary, table 3, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), 3. 22 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Tenure and Characteristics of Operator and Type of Organization for All Farms and Farms Operated by Black and Other Races: 1987, 1982, and 1978, Geographic Area Series, Part 5: California State and County Data (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), table 16, p. 20. 23 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990 Census of Population, California, table 3, Race and Hispanic Origin: 1990, (Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office), 25. 24 U.S. Bureau of Census, 1987 Census of Agriculture, Summary by Market Value of Agricultural Products Sold: 1987, Geographic Area Series, Part 5: California State and County Data (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office), table 52, p. 112. 25 Susan Peck, California Farm Worker Housing, Working Group on Farm Labor and Rural Poverty, Working Paper #6, California Institute for Rural Studies (Davis, CA: CIRS, February 1989), 2. 26 Economic Report of the President, Transmitted to the Congress February 1994 (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1994), 115.