the organic food movement and the u.s. immigrant labor experience
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THE ORGANIC FOOD
MOVEMENT AND
THE U.S. IMMIGRANT
LABOR EXPERIENCE
May 2011
Elena Botella
Duke University
1
As of June 2010, more than 11% of all fruits and vegetables purchased in the United
States were certified organic;1 U.S. production of organic foodstuffs has increased steadily since
1992, during times of prosperity and times of recession.2 Although the actual market share of
organic foods remains small, the impact of what I will call “The Organic Movement” on Western
society has been monumental, contributing to a cultural shift in the image of the prototypical
consumer from a mere acquirer of goods to an ethically non-neutral actor, forced to make
decisions in a charged socio-environment. The popular press has begun to interchange “eating
ethically” with eating organically.3 In the specific context of husbandry, organic certification
requires food producers to uphold standards of humane treatment of animals—independent of
any relation to human health; the inclusion of these standards, when the juxtaposed with the
failure to include standards of humane labor practices in the organic “bundle” provides a crucial
insight into the contemporary American moral consciousness. It is difficult to ignore the ethics
of food cultivation when the average life expectancy of a U.S. farmworker is just 49 years old4—
ten years less than the average life expectancy in Ghana or Haiti.5 The greater value the Organic
Movement has to date placed on the treatment of animals than on the treatment of farmworkers,
more than three quarters of whom are foreign-born,6 illustrates not only the low status of
farmworkers in the United States, but how the undocumented status of many farmworkers makes
them “invisible” and less able to advocate for rights. This investigation will serve as a critical
1 Industry Statistics and Projected Growth," Organic Trade Association, June 2010
<http://www.ota.com/organic/mt/business.html>. 2 United States, USDA, Economic Research Service. U.S. Certified Organic Farmland Acreage, Livestock Numbers,
and Farm Operations, 1992-2005 3 Siobhan Phillips, "Can We Afford to Eat Ethically? - Pinched: Tales from an Economic Downturn," Salon.com, 25
Apr. 2009 <http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2009/04/25/pinched_ethically>. 4 Alberto Moreno, Migrant Health Fact Sheet, Rep. Oregon Department of Health and Human Services
<http://www.oregon.gov/OHA/omhs/migrant/migranthealthfactsheet.pdf?ga=t> 5 "Life Expectancy at Birth," The World Factbook, CIA, Apr. 2011 <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-
world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html> 6 Philip L. Martin, Promise Unfulfilled: Unions, Immigration and the Farm Workers
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UP, 2003) 34.
2
review of the impacts the Organic Movement—through its ideology, its economic forces, and its
legislation—has had on U.S. migrant farmworkers, and on immigration and labor more
generally. This critical review will shed light on the complex interplays between Westerners and
the Global South, between the politics of consumption and the realities of production, between
mammoth corporations and governments and single agents faced with making decisions of
economics, of ethics and of identity.
The Philosophy and Social Pressures of the Organic Movement
In the United States, organic certification, which was codified into federal law in 1990,7
makes no demands on farm operators to engage in fair labor practices, outside of the set oft
abused federal and state labor laws applying to both organic and conventional producers. Farm
operators routinely violate labor law—in 1997, of the 455 random investigations performed by
the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, 130 were found to be in violation of
labor law in at least one of the following ways: (1) failing to pay employees the minimum wage,
(2) failing to provide overtime pay, (3) making use of illegal child labor, (4) paying in cash, or
(5) failing to provide worker‟s compensation.8 Farmworker advocates note that the precarious
legal status of these immigrants makes it difficult for them to lobby for improved wages or more
expansive rights. This hypothesis is confirmed by empirical evidence; in 1992, legal residents
of the United States in primary farm jobs throughout the United States were found to have
earnings that were 33% higher than the earnings of undocumented residents, even when
controlling for crop picked, hours worked, and years in the United States.9 The physical
7 United States, USDA, Alternative Farming Systems Information Center, Guide to U.S. Organic Marketing Laws
and Regulations, By Mary V. Gold, 2008., National Agricultural Library
<http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/OAP/OAPGuide1.shtml> 8 California, California Research Bureau. Farmworkers in California, By Alicia Bugarin and Elisa Lopez. California
State Library, July 1998 < http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/98/07/98007a.pdf> 9 J.E. Taylor, "Earnings and Mobility of Legal and Illegal Immigrant Workers in Agriculture, "American Journal of
Agricultural Economics 74.4, (1992) 893.
3
conditions of farm labor are trying and often dangerous; in 2007, the rate of fatalities in the
agricultural sector was 6.9 times than the U.S. average, and in 2005, 20% of farmworkers
surveyed in the National Agricultural Workers Survey reported having no access to drinking
water during the day.10
It the absence of a legal framework that sufficiently protects
farmworkers, it is tempting to look for alternative vehicles to improve farmworker conditions. In
July 2008, John Schwenkler in the Boston Globe summarized the goal of what he likewise calls
the “Organic Movement” as encouraging the return of “traditional foods and forms of
agriculture,” 11
while rejecting the environmental, ethical and social consequences of an
industrialized agriculture and food system; similar definitions exist within academic literature.12
In order to brand itself as “ethical” eating, the Organic Movement must address the impacts the
agricultural sector have on the manual laborers immediately responsible for harvesting food; this
part of the investigation will seek to determine whether the complex notions of “Organic” as an
ideology of agriculture, food and eating have in the past or will in the future impact the migrant
agricultural workforce. This will be analyzed separately from the impacts the legislation of the
organic movement and the economic forces of the organic movement have on the migrant
agricultural workforce.
Important to the analysis of this paper will be the claim that the trend towards certain
types of food consumption and production in western liberal democracies, including the
emphasis on local, certified-organic, certified-humane, “slow” vegetarian and vegan food is
reflective of a social movement, best deemed the Organic Movement. The literature on social
10
Occupational Health and Safety, Rep. National Center for Farmworker Health, Inc., 2009
<http://www.ncfh.org/docs/fs-Occ%20Health.pdf> 11
John Schwenkler, "Eat Republican" The Boston Globe 20 July 2008
<http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/eat_republican/> 12
Aimee Shreck, Christy Getz, and Gail Feenstra, "Social Sustainability, Farm Labor, and Organic Agriculture:
Findings from an Exploratory Analysis," Agriculture and Human Values 23.4 (2006) 445
4
movements defines them as informal collectivities dedicated to creating social change. 13
While
initially unorganized and informal, social movements develop organizational capacity in order to
affect their desired changes, but in doing so, they tend to moderate their ideologies to generate
wider consensus.14
Coined and largely conceived by Sir Alfred Howard in post-WWI Britain,15
the “organic”
movement spread and was first popularized in the United States and Canada in the 1960‟s and
70‟s among Howard‟s counterculture protégés, who viewed organic farming as a Utopian
political act. A quote from Whole Earth Catalog in 1969 provides a good context for the initial
social radicalism of the organic movement: “If I were a dictator determined to control the
national press, Organic Gardening would be the first publication I‟d squash, because it‟s the
most subversive. I believe that organic gardeners are in the forefront of a serious effort to save
the world by changing man‟s orientation to it.”16
The intended social ramifications of the
organic food movement, from overthrowing capitalist structures to creating gender equality and
reorganizing communities were integral to the organic food movement‟s conception, and yet, the
organic food movement did not initially need to conceive of a stance towards labor or
immigration, insofar the initial organic farms were not large enough to require a large source of
outside laborer.
The rise of certification forever changed the organic food movement, and it was because
of certification that concerns about labor and immigration could become relevant. Prior to the
codification of organic standards, the organic consumer base could only identify organic food
through relationships with the food producer. This system, which encouraged a holistic and
13
Mario Diani, "The Concept of Social Movement," The Sociological Review 40.1 (1992) 2. 14
Nick Crossley, Making Sense of Social Movements (Buckingham: Open UP, 2002) 87. 15
Kregg Hetherington, Cultivating Utopia: Organic Farmers in a Conventional Landscape (Black Point, N.S.:
Fernwood Pub., 2005) 19. 16
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: a Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin, 2006) 132.
5
personal, rather than strictly criterion-based, understanding of organic food production, and
allowed the consumer to directly observe the farms and conclude whether or not the practices
were worthy of paying premium prices. Necessarily though, the organic food movement could
not achieve a large scale until certification standards emerged, initially at the community, and
then state and national levels to reduce the consumer‟s costs of acquiring information. The
trend towards certification, however, reduced “organic” farming to its lowest common
denominator of non-chemically treated agriculture, legally and practically allowing farms that
looked far different from the counterculture-pastoral ideal to attach “organic” to their names.
Labeling provides organic food producers an opportunity beyond certification to add credibility
to their product, and, as stated by Michael Pollan, when the average farm is 1,500 miles away
from the consumer, “to bridge that space, we rely on certifiers and label writers and, to a
considerable extent, our imagination of what the farms that are producing our food really look
like.”17
The failure to have labor standards codified within organic certification reflects an
instance of compromise and moderation by the Organic Movement in order to achieve a more
limited, concrete success; organic farmers and organic community members began to lobby
provincial, state and federal governments in the 1970s for legal standards for “organic,” correctly
anticipating that doing so would make organic farms more economically viable, but knowing that
certification would require a relatively finite and narrow set of criteria.18
This type of
compromise and moderation in order to achieve resonance with a wider base is a phenomenon
described in social movement literature as goal moderation.19
17
Pollan 136. 18
Hetherington 23. 19
Mayer N. Zald and Roberta Ash, "Social Movement Organizations: Growth, Decay and Change, "Social
Movement Organization 44.3 (1966), 348.
6
More drastically, and with more internal critics, the corporatization of the organic sector
similarly reflects goal moderation. In order for the Organic Movement to have expanded to its
current size without the agribusiness entering the market or without previously small organic
farms growing to corporate size would have required a truly enormous number of individuals to
become organic farm operators, and yet, despite the emergence of corporate organic, small
organic farmers persist, selling their harvests largely at farmer‟s markets, to upscale restaurateurs
and through CSAs.20
As noted by Julie Guthman, Associate Professor of Community Studies at
UC-Davis the organic food sector has bifurcated into two distinct categories—“producers of
lower cost and/or processed organic food…appealing to meanings of health and safety; the other
producing higher value produce in direct markets and appealing to meanings of organicism,
political change, and novelty.”21
While the number of organic farmers continued to rise, the
industry dominance of corporate organic farms has risen much more quickly—strikingly,
Earthbound Farm grows 80% of the organic lettuce soul in the United States.22
The
corporatization is occurring throughout the organic supply chain; as of 2008, nearly half of all
certified organic products were purchased in “conventional” outlets like mainstream
supermarkets, club stores, or big box stores.23
The act of certification is what opened up the
Organic Movement to the possibility of labor abuses, by allowing for weaker relationships
between producers and consumers and by expanding the scope of organic agriculture enough that
it would require outside labor, and yet, only by expanding could the Organic Movement
20
Hetherington 33-39. 21
Julie Guthman, Agrarian Dreams: the Paradox of Organic Farming in California (Berkeley: University of
California, 2004) 10. 22
Pollan 142. 23
United States. Department of Agriculture. Economic Research Service. Marketing U.S. Organic Foods: Recent
Trends from Farms to Consumers. By Carolyn Dimitri and Lydia Oberholtzer (2009) iii.
7
influence the fabric of mainstream society, or have any impact at large in the United States on
labor.
Commentators like Michael Pollan and Julie Guthman have questioned whether
“corporate organic” threatens the core of Organic Movement ideology; this question is not the
focus of the investigation at hand. Whether or not corporate organic represents a “success” for
the organic movement it certainly symptomatic of the success of the organic movement that its
values have become increasingly mainstream, creating demand for organic-certified food in a
wide base of the population and encouraging corporations throughout the supply chain to enter
the market. “Corporate organic” as it is conceived in this review coexists and delicately
interacts with the organic movement—many of the consumers that purchase organic food, even
from mega-organic chains like Whole Foods, buy into some or all elements of organic movement
ideology, and perceive of themselves as ideological actors in the context of their consumer
behavior. Indeed, many of the “Big Organic” operators are themselves ideologically motivated,
and profess to doing the noble work of bringing organic food to the masses—as noted by
Guthman, like the small organic farmers, Big Organic offers its own claims to “the moral high
ground.”24
It is only because “Big Organic” has become so big that it has it has begun to have
measurable impacts in the North American agricultural market. In framing the impact organic
movement ideology has had on labor and immigration in the United States, we lay bare the
complex interactions between consumers and large and small producers, leading towards the
question: in an increasingly corporatized sector where the farmer is separated from the buyer,
can ideology protect farmworkers?
It is clear that recent entrants into the organic sector are much less motivated by ideology
than the initial entrants, and are more likely to “cut corners” in all senses order to ensure
24
Guthman 10
8
profitability. The Norwegian Agricultural Economics Research Institute found that dairy and
crop farmers who converted to organic practices before 1995 were 2.3 times as likely to cite
ideology or philosophy as the reason why they converted—those who converted after 1999 were
4 times as likely as those before 1995 to cite profitability as their most important motive.25
Accordingly, there is a widespread fear among advocates for immigrant and farmworker labor
that the corporatization of industry generally leads to declines in labor conditions, under the
assumption that corporate farms and retailers, more profit-driven and less values-oriented than
smaller producers and retailers will show less regard for labor conditions. Nadeen Bir,
Organizing and Activism Director of Student Action for Farmworkers demonstrated these
concerns by noting, “I think we need to learn more about the classification of organic—what
percentage of these farms are corporate farms? How big are they?”26
Farm size alone, by virtue
of the economics of scale, does impact immigration and labor, but Bir‟s concerns more directly
reflect a fear that corporations lack the motivation to provide fair labor conditions.
In April of 2011, when asked to compare labor conditions in organic versus conventional
agriculture, National Vice President of the United Farm Workers, Armando Elenes said, “We
have both types under contract. As for the differences for farm workers...there is none. They are
treated equally as bad. [For employers] the decision of doing organic is a monetary one.”27
A number of case studies exist to confirm the notion that corporate players in the
organics industry closely resemble corporate players in other parts of the food industry, in their
willingness to rely on undocumented immigrants, in their hesitancy to recognize labor unions,
and their inconsistent record of obeying U.S. labor law or voluntarily accepting additional labor
25
O.G. Flaten, M. Koesling Lien, P. Valle and M. Ebbevsik, “Comparing Risk Perceptions and Risk Management in
Organic and Conventional Dairy Farming: Empirical Results from Norway," Livestock Production Science 95.1-2
(2005): 11-25. 26
Nadeen Bir, Telephone interview, 15 Apr. 2011. 27
Armando Elenes, "Union Presence among Organic Farmworkers?," Message to the author, 15 Apr. 2011, E-mail.
9
protections. However, this can be true only if the organic consumer regards these labor practices
as acceptable, because the organic sector‟s differentiation is predicated on appealing to
complicated consumer notions of what food ought to be. We will choose case studies that
illustrate the complex ways in which information can be disseminated or fails to be disseminated
to the organic consumer, enabling the organic consumer to respond against labor abuses, or
allowing the organic consumer to turn a blind eye. Two of these case studies, that of Country
National Beef and of the U.S. Strawberry industries, both relating to labor standards and
unionization, center on the retailer Whole Foods. Whole Foods, already the largest natural food
chain at the time, acquired its largest competitor, Wild Oats, in 2007, becoming a dominant force
in the organics industry, and in fact, becoming so large that Federal Trade Commission brought
anti-trust litigation against them, forcing Whole Foods to divest some of its holdings.28
Whole
Foods is perhaps the best representation of the “Big Organics” sector, and ideology is an integral
part of its brand. As stated by a Whole Foods‟ marketing consultant, the Whole Foods Shopper
feels that by buying organic he is enacting “a return to a utopian past with the positive impacts of
modernity intact.”29
A third case study of the Chipotle Mexican Grill, which operated over 1,000
restaurants as of December 2010,30
reflects a corporation whose Organic Movement branding is
marginally less central to its corporate image—this case study is of interest for its direct and
highly topical relevance to issues of illegal immigration in the United States, and because
provides a compelling case for the argument that immigration issues are not intimately a part of
the Organic consumer‟s moral consciousness.
28
Ashby Jones, "Making Sense of the Whole Foods/FTC Antitrust Settlement," Web log post, Law Blog, The Wall
Street Journal, 6 Mar. 2009 < http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/03/06/making-sense-of-the-whole-foodsftc-antitrust-
settlement/tab/article/> 29
Pollan 135 30
United States, Security and Exchanges Comission, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.,
<http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1058090/000119312511039010/d10k.htm>.
10
The story of Country Natural Beef is among the most striking and best-documented
instances of violation of labor standards in the organic movement, however, despite the abuses
that occurred, consumer pressure working within Organic Movement ideology eventually
resulted in a positive labor resolution. While Country Natural Beef is not a certified organic
provider—their cattle graze on public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service, an agency that
makes limited use of pesticides31
--with over $45 million in sales, mostly to Whole Foods, and
with Food Alliance certification, Country Natural Beef (and its parent company, Beef Northwest)
is nevertheless a major player in the organic-natural food sector.32
In the fall of 2006, United Farm Workers approached Beef Northwest feed lot workers
with the opportunity to unionize—UFW supporters cited Beef Northwest‟s refusal to offer pay
raises, affordable health insurance or respect to their 70% Latino labor force.33
In June of 2008, a
card-check election was held, and, according to the UFW, a neutral third party verified than more
than 50% of feedlot workers wanted UFW representation, although Beef Northwest claimed they
had not been sufficiently notified about the election, and called for a secret ballot election to be
held instead. Despite pressure from UFW, Whole Foods initially failed to take action against
Beef Northwest—as of August, 2008, John Wilson, managing partner at Beef Northwest feeders
noted, “both Beef Northwest and County Natural Beef have had numerous conversations with
Whole Foods and the relationship is excellent.”34
The Organics Consumer Association (OCA)
alleged that Beef Northwest singled out employee Fortunado Diaz, who had led a movement to
gather petitions to show to Whole Foods asking for their support, by attempting to physically
31
"Frequently Asked Questions." Country Natural Beef, <http://www.countrynaturalbeef.com/faq.php>. 32
"Country Natural Beef, " Food Alliance, <http://foodalliance.org/copy_of_case-studies/country-natural-beef>. 33
Shelby Wood, "Dispute Threatens Family Ranches Raising All-natural Beef," The Oregonian [Portlance] 3 June
2008 <http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/06/dispute_threatens_family_ranch.html> 34
Mitch Lies, "Obama Backs UFW's Union Drive at Whole Food Supplier, Beef NorthWest, "Capital Press [Salem]
15 Aug. 2008, The Organic Consumer's Association
<http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14374.cfm>
11
isolate him, placing him alone in remote areas of the ranch against typical protocol, and failing to
provide him with drinking water.35
Only after a months-long campaign by the UFW, by the
OCA, by the Teamsters, and under pressure from then presidential hopeful Barack Obama, did
first Whole Foods agree to cease purchasing Beef Northwest products. This in turn brought
Beef Northwest back to the bargaining table with UFW, where they eventually reached a
contract guaranteeing workers medical and pension coverage, paid vacations, break, meal times,
restrooms, drinking water and heat stress mitigation.36
This case study provides a valuable framework through which to understand the capacity
for Organic Movement philosophy to check the tendency of corporations, even within the
organic sector, to profit-maximize at the expense of laborers. Consumer pressure among
informed participants in the Organic Movement, particularly, members of the Organics
Consumer Association, forced corporate organics actors like Whole Foods and Country Natural
Beef to improve worker conditions, and provides evidence that the mentality of mindful and
ethical consumerism within the Organic Movement can protect immigrant laborers in ways that
U.S. labor law and federal standards for organic certification do not. Although it is tempting to
view the Country Natural Beef case study as evidence for the possibility of Organic Movement
ideology to lead to better conditions for farmworkers, the achievements could have only occurred
with the organizational presence of UFW, which had the capacity to mobilize Country Natural
Beef‟s organic consumer base to apply pressure throughout the supply chain. Farmworker
unionization is notoriously difficult to accomplish—there are almost no barriers to entry into the
agricultural labor market, immigration ensures a steady influx of workers, seasonal workers do
not remain long enough to be organized, and the U.S. Department of Labor offers agricultural
35
"Take Action: Support United Farm Workers" Organic Consumer's Organization
<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/642/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1364>. 36
"Victories," United Farm Workers of America <http://www.ufw.org/_board.php?b_code=org_vic>.
12
employers farm placement services which in practice help break strikes.37
The philosophy and
ideology of the Organic Movement towards labor cannot be mobilized in the presence of
incomplete information—the shortcomings of organic certification require active labor unions to
fulfill this role.
The strawberry subsector providers another instance of the limitations of Organic
Movement philosophy to protect worker‟s rights. In 1996, UFW, the National Organization for
Women (NOW) and over 28 other progressive organizations launched the Strawberries Workers
Campaign to attempt to organize strawberry pickers throughout California and to protest the
farmworkers poor treatment. The campaign garnered considerable national attention—marches
were held in New York, San Antonio, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago.38
UFW asked
Whole Foods to pledge their support for the campaign, and, when Whole Foods refused, UFW
launched protests outside of the Whole Foods headquarters in Austin.39
Whole Foods responded
by distributing a brochure to its customers that read: “Whole Foods Market fully supports
workers' rights to receive fair wages, decent working conditions, and the right to join a union if
they so choose. Workers' rights are covered by state and federal laws, and farms are required to
pay minimum wages, unemployment insurance, and provide a clean working environment."40
For Whole Foods to have made this assertion in the context of an industry where suppressed
wages and substandard labor conditions are the norm, rather than the exception, and where labor
laws are routinely ignored, illustrates naiveté at best, and deliberate misinformation at worst.
37
J. C. Jenkins, and Charles Perrow, "Farmworker's Movements," The Social Movements Reader: Cases and
Concepts (Malden: Blackwell, 2003) 270-273. 38
"Activists March for Strawberry Workers Rights: Workers Sign First Union Contract," National Organization for
Women (NOW),1998 <http://www.now.org/nnt/05-98/berries.html>. 39
John Nichols "Unionizing Whole Foods Would Be Fitting," Editorial, The Capital Times[Madison] 22 June
2002. Student Labor Action Coalition. University of Wisconsin-Madison < http://slac.rso.wisc.edu/old/nichols-6-27-
02.html> 40
Paul Ortiz, "Whole Foods Plays Dirty," The Prism [Raleigh] May 1998
<http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/may98/whole.html>
13
This is a powerful example of the organic industry failing to take moral leadership in the context
of fair labor, and illustrates the extent to which a “halo effect” surrounding organic-certified food
can shield labor abuses in the organic sector. Organic suppliers have the capacity to leverage
their considerable social good will to shield themselves from scrutiny on labor issues. The
organic sector is an economy of information; the most visible difference between organic and
non-organic products in the marketplace is the additional information accompanying organic
products, minimally the evidence of certification, and at most, rich narratives tracing the piece of
beef or bag of apples back to their point of origin. Because the consumer lacks few mechanisms
through which to verify this information, when organic sector suppliers choose to obfuscate the
labor conditions under which the food is produced, organic sector consumers are unlikely to
mobilize.
Chipotle Mexican Grill will provide a third case study through which we understand how
Organic Movement ideology translates into conditions for immigrants and laborers. Chipotle
Mexican Grill‟s motto “food with integrity” speaks to several components of its business plan:
the use of organic ingredients throughout the menu and a commitment to sourcing produce from
within 300 miles when seasonally available.41
In February of 2011, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) found Chipotle to be in massive violation of U.S. immigration law in its
locations throughout the United States. There is reason to believe that Chipotle violated
immigration law knowingly; in an interview, Miguel Bravo, a Salvadorean former employee of
Chipotle noted, “They don't have a modern system to verify documents ... They didn't confront
me at any moment, or ask me if my papers were good or if I was authorized to work legally in
41
"Chipotle: Food With Integrity," Chipotle Mexican Grill <http://www.chipotle.com/en-
US/fwi/environment/environment.aspx>.
14
the United States,"42
When Chipotle came under federal investigation, they launched a massive
round of lay-offs; some of these ex-workers have launched protests in Washington D.C. claiming
that they were denied severance owed, and that, upon being fired, they were not paid in full,43
and at least two Minnesota employees had filed lawsuits as of February 2011 for similar
complaints.44
In Minnesota, at least 450 employees were fired between December and March
for their immigration status—almost 40% of their workforce in that state.45
This case study demonstrates that with respect to immigration law, organic sector actors
cannot be assumed to be more compliant than their conventional sector counterparts. Viewed
from a variety of ideological perspectives, the Chipotle case is damning; critics of hiring
undocumented immigrants can point to the enormous scale of their labor law violations, while
pro-immigrant and pro-labor groups can leverage ethical charges against Chipotle for the
allegations that Chipotle failed to pay workers their due wages. Despite this, as of May 2011, the
protests against Chipotle (all of which have occurred from the latter, rather than the former
perspective), which have occurred in at least eight states, 46
have not been organized by
traditional organic movement participants, but instead by organized labor organizations and
immigrant‟s rights groups.47
Although Chipotle‟s branding squarely places it within the
organics sector, the formal social infrastructures within the Organic Sector have not responded.
42
Lisa Baertlein and Mary Milliken, Reuters, 13 Apr. 2011 <http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/13/us-chipotle-
idUSTRE73C0P220110413?pageNumber=2>. 43
"Chipotle At Odds with Immigration Activists - News - WAMU 88.5 FM - American University Radio, " WAMU
88.5 - American University Radio. 24 Mar. 2011
<http://wamu.org/news/11/03/24/chipotle_at_odds_with_immigration_activists.php>. 44
Elizabeth Llorente, "Chipotle Workers Fired over Immigration Status Sue for Backpay," Fox News Latino, 9 Feb.
2011 <http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/02/07/smuggle-truck-operation-immigration-iphone-app-
draws/#ixzz1DNSMDV7E>. 45
Lee S. Dean, "America's Next Great Restaurant - Show # 3," Web log post, Star Tribune. 24 Mar. 2011 <
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/taste/blogs/118394634.html> 46
“8 Protesters Arrested at Downtown Minneapolis Chipotle, " Fox 9 News KMSP-TV Minneapolis-St. Paul, 20 Jan.
2011 <http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/minnesota/chipotle-protest-arrests-minneapolis-jan-20-2011> 47
"Fired Latino Chipotle Workers Protest, Eight Allies Arrested," Fight Back! News. 21 Jan. 2011
<http://www.fightbacknews.org/2011/1/21/fired-latino-chipotle-workers-protest-eight-allies-arrested>.
15
The Chipotle case is, in part, interesting because, unlike the cases of agricultural violations of
labor law, Chipotle restaurants are located in urban and suburban settings, where the organic
consumer has the opportunity to at least partially observe the labor practices. The incident
illustrates the extent to which the Organic Movement can, if it so chooses, ignore taking direct
stands on issues of immigration, and how on issues of just labor practices, outside groups are
charged with drawing national attention and disseminating information, rather than the
movement occurring internally. Chipotle boasts that the “when sourcing meat, we work hard to
find farmers and ranchers who are doing things the right … [those that] treat animals with
dignity and respect is to allow them to display their natural tendencies.”48
This emphasis on the
language of “dignity” and “respect” is not dissimilar from contemporary human rights language,
and yet, rarely do Organic Movement actors apply the words of “dignity” or “respect” to their
treatment of farm workers.
It is evident that whole sectors of the organics industry now operate outside of any
ideological policing on labor issues from within the Organic Movement. Chipotle is a fast-food
chain making use of organic ingredients, not the prototypical food cooperative or farmer‟s
market that the Organic Movement conceptualized as its ideal retailer. Similarly, Whole Foods
is a massive chain that sources its food products internationally, straying far from the Organic
Movement‟s initial conception of community-based food systems. However, both chains have
built their success by capitalizing on the ideology that the Organic Movement propagated,
admittedly, in more moderate forms. These large firms have substantial control over the
information and narrative they create to surround their food products, and only in the presence of
48
"We Treat Them Like Animals," Chipotle Mexican Grill <http://www.chipotle.com/en-
US/fwi/animals/animals.aspx>.
16
highly organized external parties to propagate information do Organic Movement actors
successfully create better labor standards within the rapidly corporatizing organic food sector.
The Economic Forces of the Organic Movement
The corporation of the organic movement has implications on labor outside of the
diminished importance of ideology among these new market participants. Major economic
forces associated with the organic movement differentiate its impact on labor and immigration
from that of conventional farms—their size, their comparatively more labor-intensive cultivation
practices, and their likelihood to employ seasonal, as opposed to year-round labor.
The size of organic farms
While it is certainly true that organic farms rapidly corporatizing, we have not yet asked
how organic farms compare in size to their conventional counterparts. Because farm size has
major impacts on hiring practices, and patterns of labor and immigration, this question is of
particular interest. In the United States, two types of farm labor dominate—(1) farm operators
and their family members who, instead of salary, subsist of the profits of the farm, and (2) hired
workers, a group that is overwhelmingly foreign-born. Because small farmers typically use only
the first type of labor—88% of farms in the United States hire no outside workers49
—if corporate
organic farms were still smaller than their conventional counterparts, this could still have major
impacts on immigration and labor patterns. Farm size can impact labor standards in diverse and
surprising ways. While conventional wisdom holds that labor standards will be higher on small,
family-owned farms than larger corporate farms, it may be that large farms offer more labor
protection. The small size of family farms can, in some cases, shield them from scrutiny under
labor law. In North Carolina, for example, statute requires farm employers to provide worker‟s
49
Phillip Martin and Linda Calvin, "Immigration Reform: What Does It Mean for Agriculture and Rural
America?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 32.2 (2010) 238.
17
compensation only if they have at least ten year-round workers, or one worker with an H2A
(Temporary Agriculture) Visa.50
Empirical evidence suggests that within the organics industry,
corporate farms may provide superior benefits packages to non-family employees than do
smaller farms; almost 60% of organic farms with annual sales of $1 million or more provide
health insurance, compared to only a quarter of farms with sales between $250,000 and $1
million, and only 18% of farms with annual sales between $50,000 and $250,000.51
Empirical evidence suggests that in fact, organic farms differ just barely from
conventional farms in their size. The average size of an organic farm is indeed slightly smaller
than that of a conventional farm—in 2007, 385 acres for organic farms, compared to 418 acres
for conventional farms, but the vast majority of production, in organic as in non-organic
agriculture are by a few massive agribusiness. The comparative sizes of organic and non-
organic farms are rapidly converging—in 2005, the average size of an organic farm was only 309
acres.52
Cultivation practices of organic farms
The limited use of synthetic chemical associating with organic agriculture requires
organic farm operators to make greater use of labor to perform tasks like pest removal and soil
addition.53
In the American Southeast, organic vegetable farming was found to be twice as labor
intensive as conventional vegetable farming, organic herb farming 6.3 times more labor intensive
than conventional herb farming, and conventional grains farming 1.7 times as labor intensive as
50
North Carolina, General Assembly, Statute 97-13 Exceptions from Provisions of Article.
<http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/PDF/BySection/Chapter_97/GS_97-13.pdf>. 51
Shreck 440. 52
“United States Fact Sheet: US Agriculture," USDA, Economic Research Service, 30 Mar. 2011
<http://www.ers.usda.gov/statefacts/us.htm> 53
Florence I. Santos and Cesar. L. Escalante, Farm Labor Management Decisions of Organic and Conventional
Farms: A Survey of Southeastern Farm Businesses, Rep. no. 10-001 Jan. 2010
<http://www.ces.uga.edu/Agriculture/agecon/pubs/Outreach%20Bulletin%20-
%20Farm%20Labor%20Management%20Survey.pdf>
18
conventional grains farming.54
This, in conjunction with farm size, has the greatest impact on
the organic industry‟s demand for labor. At least some evidence suggests that organic farms may
even exceed conventional farms in their demand for labor; a study of 83 farms in the
Southeastern United States performed in by the University of Georgia 2007 found that organic
farms hired an average of 75 non-family workers, compared to an average of 41 non-family
workers among conventional farms.55
Clear data does not exist on exactly what fraction of organic farmers make use of
undocumented immigrant labor. In a survey of organic and conventional farmers in Georgia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi, 40% of organic farm operators did
respond that they anticipated that stricter enforcement of immigration laws would force them to
increases the wages they paid their employees, implying that many of these farms make use of
undocumented immigrants, or, minimally, compete in the same labor markets as do conventional
farmers, 42% of whom answered that stricter enforcement would force them to pay higher
wages.56
If the organic sector is similarly likely to employ immigrant labor as the conventional
sector, than the increased labor demands of the organic sector means the more organic output
displaces conventional output, the more total labor the agricultural industry will require. If rates
of organic production continue to climb at current rates, this will have a meaningfully large
impact on U.S. labor and immigration patterns.
Seasonal labor
For most crops in most parts of the United States, organic agriculture will necessarily be
seasonal. U.S. Labor Department statistics indicate that over 95% of organic farmworkers are
54
Ibid. 55
Ibid. 56
Ibid.
19
seasonal, compared to 60% in the conventional sector.57
In this sense, the impacts of
displacement of conventional agriculture by organic agriculture on immigrant labor will be
severe and negative. Seasonal workers have much less capacity to collectively organize, and
generally receive much lower wages and experience worse working conditions, and additionally,
must expend considerable resources traveling between jobs and searching for work. In 2005, the
average wages of seasonal agricultural workers was nearly $1 lower than that of year-round
workers.58
Anecdotal evidence suggests that some organic producers who are particularly
concerned with social justice invest resources in expanding their crop diversity to allow for year-
round work opportunities for their employees, but there is no empirical evidence to suggest how
common this practice is.59
In summary, if current trends in the organic movement persist, in the absence of
meaningful immigration reform we should expect that the United States to substantially increase
its demand for seasonal immigrant labor. If increases in organic production come at the expense
of conventional production, the shift from year-round to seasonal employment would have
negative impacts on the capacity of U.S. immigrants to organize for labor rights.
The Legislation of the Organic Movement
Of the three categories identified in this review, the legislation created by the Organic
Movement has had the most obviously positive impact on immigrant labor. Specifically, the
reduced use of chemical pesticides reduces one important health risk associated with farm labor.
In the United States, approximately 300,000 farmworkers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each
year, from direct contact with residues on crops, direct spraying of workers, indirect spray from
57
Luanne Lohr and Timothy A. Park, "Labor Pains: Valuing Seasonal versus Year-Round Labor on Organic
Farms." Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 34.2 (2009): 318. 58
Ibid 320. 59
Shreck 445.
20
wind drifts, and exposure to contaminated water.60
Pesticide exposure is a particularly
dangerous risk for undocumented immigrants, who tend to have low or no access to healthcare;
although the average income for farmworkers fall well below the Medicaid eligibility line,
undocumented immigrants do not qualify for Medicaid, and lack sufficient resources to acquire
private health insurance.61
For two decades,62
United Farm Workers has campaign heavily for
changes in U.S. pesticide use, lobbying for larger pesticide buffer zones, better drift labeling,63
and the banning of methyl iodide.64
The most limited way of defining Organic Movement
legislation in the context of this argument is the restrictions on synthetic pesticide use for organic
certification. This, when combined with the Organic Movement consumer mobilization, has had
and will continue to have a measurable impact on pesticide use in the United States. While it is
difficult to speculate a counterfactual world in which the Organic Movement had not occurred,
and to assess the difference in pesticide use in both worlds, the most conservative estimate would
note that, since 4% of food sales in the United States are certified organic65
, that minimally, the
Organic Movement has resulted in a 4% decrease in the annual volume of pesticide use.
However, we need not conceptualize the legislative impacts of the Organic Movement so
narrowly. It would be legitimate to include the Organic Movement as among the forces that
resulted in the banning of DDT, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the
60
Eric Hansen and Martin Donohoe, "Health Issue of Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers," Journal of Health Care
for the Poor and Underserved 14.2 (2003): 157. 61
Thomas A. Arcury and Sara A. Quandt, "Delivery of Health Services to Migrant and Seasonal
Farmworkers," Annual Review of Public Health 28.1 (2007): 349. 62
Santos Vegas, "Cesar Chavez," Hispanic Research Center. Arizona State University
<http://www.asu.edu/clas/hrc/latino/chavez/chavez.intro.html>. 63
"Urge EPA to Protect Farm Worker Kids," United Farm Workers of America
<http://action.ufw.org/page/s/epadrifts> 64
"EPA Reconsidering Toxic Pesticide Methyl Iodide. Sign the Petition Today," United Farm Workers of America.
< http://action.ufw.org/page/s/mi411> 65
"Industry Statistics and Projected Growth.”
21
passing of the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, all of which contributed to decreased exposure
of farmworkers to pesticides across the agricultural sector.66
The Future of the Organic Movement with Respect to Labor
At present, organic certification is a limited claim, mostly about the chemicals involved
in the creation of an agricultural derivative, and yet the Organic Movement is an expansive one,
dedicated to a wide variety of practices and principles. The Organic Movement cannot continue
to substitute “organic” with “ethical” if it fails to exert moral leadership on the issue of the
treatment of the immigrant farmworker class. Statements among Organic Movement
participants like Mark Lipman of the California Certified Organic Farmers who claimed, “I think
that organic farming is more socially responsible just by being organic,”67
are at best
problematic, and at worst, illustrate a dangerous hypocrisy and moral oversight of the Organic
Movement.
The Organic Movement has the capacity to lobby for legislation that would add criterion
about fair labor into National Organic Program standards, mobilize consumer sentiment against
the most egregious corporate abusers of farmworker rights, to create a separate, uniform “fair
labor” certification scheme (Fairtrade, while similar in its goals, restricts its scope to
international producers, and, in many industries, will only certify cooperatives and not large
agricultural businesses), to call on federal and state governments to more rigorously enforce
existing labor laws, or to propose immigration policies that would prevent the exploitation of
farmworkers.
Of these proposals, the first goal is both realistic and high-impact. If there is sufficient
consumer mobilization around the issue of including labor standards in organic certification, the
66
Guthman 36-37. 67
Shreck 449.
22
only obstacle to the implementation of those standards would be opposition from the organic
industry itself. This concern is nontrivial--a survey of organic farm operators in California found
that only one quarter supported the inclusion of criteria on working conditions in organic
standards68
--but nevertheless, the mere existence of the Organic sector demonstrates that if
consumers demand particular standards of food cultivation, producers will come to fulfill those
needs. It is not unlikely that a second, distinct, widely-recognized, “super-organic” certification
could arise, whether or not it became federally endorsed; such a certification would formalize the
bifurcation within the organic sector that Guthman earlier described, and could insist on higher
labor standards for consumers who valued fair treatment of farmworkers.
More research is necessary to quantify the impacts of the Organic Movement on
immigration and labor, including the need to more systematically measure wage differentials and
differences in working conditions between the organic and conventional sectors. That
farmworker rights have been generally ignored in the push for “ethical eating,” most likely
reflects a lack of awareness among the general public and among participants in the Organic
Movement about the labor conditions under which their food is produced. Even among those
concerned about labor standards, there are few reliable sources of information that would allow
Organic Movement consumers to compare treatment of farmworkers across agricultural
providers. Some actors in the organic sector, including Bon Appetit Management Company
(BAMCO), a café and catering services corporation emphasizing sustainable and organic
ingredients, have used their commitment to fair labor as a part of their marketing campaigns—in
2010, BAMCO released that they would no longer purchase tomatoes from suppliers that did not
68
Shreck 448.
23
conform to their labor code of conduct.69
Organic producers have the capacity to use fair
treatment as farmworkers as a part of their direct marketing, in ways that simultaneously raises
awareness about farmworker conditions while allowing them to differentiate themselves from
less scrupulous producers.
In the words of one BAMCO report, “We envision a day when the U.S. public will relate
to „fair and safe farm labor‟ with the same familiarity as they now do to the phrases „organic,‟
„locally grown,‟ „animal welfare,‟ „food safety,‟ and „fair trade.‟”70
If consumers remain
generally unaware of farmworker conditions, it is unlikely that the Organic Movement will have
positive impacts on U.S. labor standards, and indeed, the trend towards seasonal as opposed to
year-round labor within the organic movement could have troubling and unforeseen
consequences. Ignorance alone, however, cannot explain the Organic Movement‟s relative
silence on labor and immigration issues. The rhetoric for animal rights in contemporary western
society, popularized largely by Peter Singer, has emphasized the “innocence” of animals,
emphasizing the notion that, definitionally, animals can have done nothing to deserve
mistreatment.71
In contrast, the conception of the illegal immigrant in the United States has
historically and is still one of profound and inherent criminality and guiltiness. As early as 1921,
the Immigration Service declared untrustworthy the entire class of undocumented border-
crossers, “whose first act upon reaching our shores was to break our laws by entering in a
69
Rachel Cemansky, "Bon Appétit and United Farm Workers Partner to Improve Labor Conditions in U.S.
Agriculture," TreeHugger. 1 Apr. 2011 <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/04/bon-appetit-united-farm-
workers-partner-improve-labor-conditions-us-agriculture.php>. 70
Inventory of Farmworker Issues and Protections in the United States. Rep. Bon Appetit Foundation and United
Farmworkers of America, Mar. 2011 <http://bamco.com/uploads/documents/farmworkerinventory_0428_2011.pdf> 71
Singer, Peter. Ethics into Action: Henry Spira and the Animal Rights Movement (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1998) 107.
24
clandestine manner.”72
American society, preoccupied with conceptions of moral worthiness,
creates an environment in which it is often times safer to advocate for the rights of cattle than it
is to advocate for the rights of undocumented cattle hands. If this phenomenon represents a
broad social explanation for why farmworker issues have not been better vocalized within the
Organic Movement, more particular explanations can be made within the context of Organic
Movement ideology. What place do foreigners and outsiders have within a movement that is
dedicated to the concept of strengthening the community? Is the reliance of the agricultural
sector on a transnational labor force an inherent threat to the Organic Movement‟s mantra of
“buy local?” Perhaps the silence is reflective of the lack of willingness of the Organic
Movement, and particularly the organic industry, to highlight this dangerous contradiction.
Through pesticide reducing legislation, the Organic Movement has improved workplace
safety for all U.S. farmworkers—this stands as the lone clearly positive impact the Organic
Movement has had on agricultural labor standards. As the organic industry continues to expand,
and as Organic Movement ideals are adopted by a widening proportion of the U.S. public, the
sector‟s influence on the agricultural sector, and in turn, on the American social fabric will only
deepen. With the expansion, however, comes not only increased influence, but also increases
likelihood that the painful contradictions of the Organic Movement with respect to immigrant
labor will rise to the surface.
72 Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton, N.J: Princeton
UP, 2004) 68.
25
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