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Toward social justice and economic equity in the food system: A call for social stewardship standards in sustainable and organic agriculture
... In recent years the northsouth nexus for Fair Trade has shifted to a more regional focus where there has been a growing initiative by concerned citizens in the global north that is focused on a holistic vision of sustainability through a comprehensive set of social justice standards. These standards are to support Fair Trade between family-scale farmers and buyers and to create just working conditions for workers, interns and children on farms (Henderson et al. 2003). In 2005, the Domestic Fair Trade Working Group-later to be called the Domestic Fair Trade Association-was formed in an attempt to find a viable and progressive solution to the issues facing farms in the global north. ...
... The Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) is a non-profit initiative in the U.S. which supports fairness in the food system through development of social justice standards for organic and sustainable agriculture, aiming at the creation of universal social standards based on the principles of International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO). (Henderson 2004;Henderson et al. 2002) The North American Domestic Fair Trade Association (DFTA) is a network of diverse stakeholders in the agriculture system. DFTA does not develop its own standards of domestic fair trade, but rather evaluates other standards, labels, and initiatives in the light of its own domestic fair trade principles, in order to provide information about domestic fair trade and protect consumers from greenwashing. ...
The organic sector is in an ongoing, but somewhat ambiguous, process of differentiation. Continuing growth has also entailed intensified competition and the emergence of conventional structures within the sector. Producers are under pressure to adapt their terms of production to these developments, bearing the risk that the original values and principles of organic farming may become irrelevant. To confront these tendencies and maintain their position on the market, organic producers and processors have launched a number of organic–fair initiatives. As some consumers attach importance to ethical aspects of consumption, these actors sense market opportunities in such quality differentiation. This article presents results of a study on current organic–fair criteria, as formulated by such initiatives. All of them define standards of distributive, procedural and informational fairness, with fair prices for producers and processors and long-term agreements being core standards. We show that distributive and procedural fairness are closely linked. Although organic–fair initiatives and their main protagonists focus on external fairness, such as fair prices for farmers, thus far internal concerns, such as minimum wages or employee involvement, are of less importance. The initiatives exemplify the differentiation of quality-oriented organic food producers in highly competitive markets. They have the potential to revitalise the original values of the sector and contribute significantly to ethical standardization therein. In order to make a substantial contribution to future development of the sector, a critical examination of aspects of internal fairness as well as the formulation of appropriate standards in this field is recommended.
... While the literature on farm labor conditions is extensive, there are fewer studies addressing the specific context of organic agriculture (Allen et al 1991;Allen 1994;Brown 2003;California Sustainable Agriculture Working Group 2004;Guthman 2004;Henderson et al 2003;Inouye and Warner 2001;Jaffee 2000;Mascarenhas 1997;Mello 2006;Shreck et al 2006;Ulrich 2006). ...
... To date, however, no compulsory procedures exist to verify whether social standards have been met in the organic production process, although some groups, such as RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International), IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) and the UK-based Soil Association, are now seeking ways to meet this deficit. 2 A few private initiatives exist; for instance Rapunzel, a German fair trade food company, has set up a scheme entitled "Hand-in-Hand." 3 Such independ-____________________________ 2 Sligh and Mandelbaum (2003) describe RAFI's ongoing efforts with others on social stewardship standards in sustainable and organic agriculture. For more details on the other initiatives visit www.ifoam.org ...
While social labels necessarily need to be simple in order to appeal to busy yet concerned consumers, they also need to articulate some kind of truth. This can be established by linking them directly to the producer's well-being via a quality of life index, and second, by deciphering the ethical standpoints of consumers and then working with them to provide a label consistent with such views. This will enable consumers to act in the real world in line with their ethical reasoning. The focus throughout this paper is on social labels attached to organic produce. The con-text is that of northern consumers purchasing goods from the global South. The paper is divided into six parts. The first intro-duces the main themes. The second discusses alter-native ways of arriving at satisfactory social stan-dards. The paper then moves from general discussion to my on-going research in Madagascar and Germany. The research approach adopted is pre-sented briefly in part three while the research itself and its implications are discussed in parts four and five. The final section seeks to draw the various strands together.
Improving health and safety and achieving social justice for Latinx farmworkers in the eastern United States will require continued research and advocacy to change a variety of policies that regulate farmwork and the lives of farmworkers. This chapter summarizes four themes common across the chapters of the book: (1) since 2009, changes have occurred in both the context for farmwork and the composition of the Latinx workforce; (2) information to thoroughly document farmworker health and safety remains inadequate; (3) the changes of the past decade and the limited available information provoke grave concerns about farmworker health and justice; and (4) the deficits in farmworker health and failure to achieve farm labor justice result largely from agricultural labor policy. An agenda for farmworker social justice is presented. Social justice for farmworkers will require systemic changes in policy and regulation for labor, housing, pesticide safety, health care, wages, and immigration.
This paper assesses the possibilities and limits of efforts to incorporate social accountability into California agricultural production through voluntary certification and labeling, in the context neoliberal governance. We argue that, in its contradictory role as market mechanism, regulatory form, and social cause, certification both resists neoliberalization of the agro-food system and reinscribes neoliberal thinking. Unlike more traditional forms of social justice organizing, which have historically sought to alter power relations between labor, capital, and the state, the very notion that production conditions can be regulated through voluntary, third-party monitoring and labeling embraces several key neoliberal principles: the primacy of the market as a mechanism for addressing environmental and social ills, the privatization of regulatory functions previously reserved for the public sphere, and the assertion of the individual rights and responsibilities of citizen–consumers. Interviews with certification actors lead us to conclude that the strategic embrace of certification is driven by contradictory motivations within the movement for social accountability in agriculture, which can only be understood in relation to the confluence of a broader neoliberal political–economic order with California’s particular arrangements of farm labor politics and agro-food activism. Specifically, agro-food consolidation, rollback of protective labor regulation, the evisceration of the farm worker movement, and the conservative agrarianism of the sustainable agriculture movement intersect to circumscribe the realm of possibility and create conditions that undermine farm worker representation in the governance of agricultural labor practices.
Improving the health, safety, and justice of farmworkers in the eastern United States will require advocacy to effect changes
in labor, health, occupational, and environmental policy. This chapter summarizes three common themes on the health and justice
of farmworkers that emerge from the chapters in this volume: (1) information to document farmworker health and safety is incomplete;
(2) the limited information that is available provokes grave concerns about farmworker health and justice; and (3) deficits
in farmworker health and farm labor justice result from current agricultural policy. Positive trends in farmworker health,
safety, and justice in the eastern US are also documented in the chapters, including the efforts of advocacy organizations,
victories by farmworker labor organizations, and the expansion of community-based participatory research. Finally, an agenda
for farmworker social justice is outlined. Achieving farmworker social justice will require changing expectations of the US
consumer to include fair treatment for those who labor to grow their food, research that documents the conditions of farm
work, and changes in policy.
Over the past several decades, consumers in the global North have increasingly looked to fair or alternative trading systems
as a means to promote ecologically and socially sustainable agricultural production. While fair trade has historically been
limited to international commodity networks, US-based agro-food activists have recently turned their attentions towards building
a domestic movement, to bring fair trade principles and standards ‘home.’ Through an exploration of this growing movement,
we consider the potential for third party certification and labeling to incorporate social justice into US-based agricultural
production, with a particular focus on the implications for farm workers. We view current efforts to bring the principles
of fair trade to the domestic arena as a reflection of several interrelated developments: a growing need on the part of small
and mid-sized farmers to garner price premiums due to the erosion of the organic price premium; a recognition of the failure
of organic certification to advance a holistic vision of sustainability; and the strategic embrace of voluntary regulatory
mechanisms as an alternative to public regulation and collective bargaining. Initial research suggests that this has led to
particular framings of the domestic fair trade concept, which may undermine the movement’s ability to address the social relations
of agro-food production. Specifically, prioritization of the ‘family-scale’ farm and an undercurrent of food localism may
obscure farm workers’ role in valorizing the US agricultural landscape.
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