Tyler Jones

Agricultural Discussion Report

The discussion was over only one article, Farmworker Food Insecurity and the
Production of Hunger in California. In short, this article covered the inequity between
the people who grow our food and their hunger security. The main problem posed is that
while these farm workers grow the majority of our food, they are also some of the most
food insecure populations in the U.S.
The article brings forth multiple main issues with the food insecurity pandemic in
California. Firstly, it points out the problem of people with food insecurity and why it is
considered to be a major problem. Next, the article points out the role that the
government and the U.S. economy has had in this plight of the farmworkers. Finally, it
tries to conclude all of the previous findings so that one might fully understand the
problem that is occurring in California.
I directed our discussion at a few key points that the article discussed. I took these
points as more of challenges for solutions or right and wrong answers. The whole article
seemed to be challenging its audience to look deeper into the issue and find some sort of
conclusion. These key points that I chose are from the article that I thought to be major
thought provoking passages.
My first question from the article was taken from a line where the authors claimed
that food security at an international level, (is) widely recognized as an inalienable
right. This led me to think about our past discussions about water and how people

believe water to also be an inalienable right but that it is still debated based on resource
ownership. I then proposed the question of the validity of food security being an
inalienable right.
At first it seemed that everyone agreed to food security being an inalienable right,
with the main discussion led by Paulinas initial statements. Elvis then brought up that
some of the article was including access of healthy foods inclusion into food security and
argued that this should not be considered inalienable because it is a resource reserved for
those in less need of food.
The second question I posed was based off of the findings of the national
Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) were they found farmworkers average 190 days,
or 34.5 weeks of employment per year. These hours overall do not add up to what one
might consider to be a full-time job and might be unable to support themselves on such
hours. I proposed the question of whether the problem is due to the limiting number of
hours in the agricultural economy?
To this question the conversation shifted more towards solutions to the seasonal
jobs in the agricultural economy. This moved discussion to the solution of importing
more foods while exporting these farmworker jobs to more temperate area of the world
where there could be crops growing year round. This would ultimately need to lead to a
more global agricultural economy.
My third question pointed out some inequalities between the agricultural economy
as a whole and the wages of the farmworkers. The article pointed out that between 2002
and 2007, agricultural sales increases 32% in California, while farmworker salaries
continued to decrease. I asked why this might be?

The overwhelming was that there were basically too many migrant workers for
agricultural companies to choose from creating a system where one worker could easily
be replaced by another while keeping wages as low as possible. This is a viscous cycle
that there is no real fix for.
The fourth question I proposed was based off the article as a whole. Since the
article is solely about the agricultural economy in California, I proposed the question on
whether this should be considered a State issue and not a Federal issue?
The response to this was mixed. Alison said that this is possibly a solution
because it would create ownership of the problem and push California to create solutions
faster. Elvis brought up that this ownership of the problem could then make California
feel like it the had ownership of the entire agricultural economy and then set its own
precedence on prices and other regulations.
My fifth question stemmed from a paragraph in the article which pointed out how
the USDA changed word usage in a report to make the food scarcity in California seem
less severe. The USDA changed the wording of food insecure with hunger to very low
food security. I proposed that the key word hunger makes the problem seem much
more severe and that taking that word away may be a ploy by the USDA to hide the food
scarcity problem.
Everyone in the group seemed to agree and even talked about how there are many
parallels happening in Texas as well. Allison and Paulina brought up how there are areas
outside most towns in the Valley, where the poor live without help or notice of the local
government, and that the government knows about these areas but chooses to ignore
them.

The sixth question I proposed goes back to wage equality. I asked whether this
food insecurity problem could be boiled down to purely a wage issue and not a work
environment issue.
Everyone agreed that it could be a wage issue but how to control the wage issue
was another, more intricate problem. To increase wages, there would need to be a
complete overhaul of the agricultural economy in California which might have to be led
by the government. Another problem that arised in our discussion was of the
undocumentation of farmworkers making it hard to make sure wages are increased and
are fair.
My seventh question came from a section of the article that pushed the idea that a
lot of the problems with the agricultural economy in California is due to illegal
immigrants and their supposed belonging to a lower class in the U.S. My question was if
this is a class problem and can we morally say that these illegal immigrants do belong to
lower class and therefore it is ok for them to be paid less.
Everyone seemed to agree that there was a major class issue and that even though
we felt bad for the illegal immigrants, they did break a law and therefore should not have
access to our social justices such as minimum wage.
My last question cam from the same mindset as the previous question but added
an extra component. As before I wanted to bring up the marginalization of these
farmworkers due to their lower class but asked whether the boarder wars were one of
the leading factors in the rationalization of the farm workers being a lower class.
Once again the group agreed that the boarder wars were only amplifying the
assumption of illegal immigrants as belonging to a lower class. We also talked about how

this assumption was different between States. In California, we felt that the illegal
immigration issue as being a bigger problem and therefore looked down upon more in
that State. While in Texas, since our economy as a whole has been growing, the need for
cheap labor has actually outpaced the rate of illegal immigration and therefore making
people less likely to look down upon them. This was obviously was just a conclusion that
our group made on assumption and from personal experience.