Abstract
Because organic certification standards institutionalized a product-based rather than process-based definition, certified organic produce can be grown on large-scale industrial monocrop farms. Besides toxicity of inputs, these farms operate in much the same way as conventional production. Scholars emphasize the fact that labor rights have been left out of certification criteria, and because of that, organic farms reproduce the same labor relations as conventional. Empirical studies of organic farm labor, however, rely primarily on the perspective of farmers. In this study, I ask the farmworkers themselves how harvesting on organic farms compares to conventional, and found that working in organic negatively impacts farmworker livelihoods. Qualitative interviews with 36 strawberry harvesters in Oxnard, California reveal that farmworkers make more money in conventional strawberry production because of the interaction between wage structure and size of the berry. Conventional strawberries are larger and therefore fewer of them fill up a box. Farmworkers routinely pick more boxes in conventional than in organic, thus earning more, since under the piece rate system, farmworkers are paid per box. With short-term economic survival rather than long-term occupational health concerns in mind, strawberry harvesters would rather work on conventional farms because “la fresa orgánica es más chiquita” (organic strawberries are smaller).
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Notes
Of the thirteen growers in her sample that employ more than three-quarters of their workforce year-round, 11 were all organic while only two were mixed organic. For all organic, 14% of growers sampled provide year-round employment for at least 75% of their workforce, whereas only 3% of mixed organic growers do.
All names are pseudonyms.
This self-determination ethic has also been found by Sarah Bronwyn Horton (2016) in her work with farmworkers in the Central Valley.
Triqui farmworkers are highlighted in Seth Holmes’ (2013) ethnography of farm labor in Washington state, while in California, most indigenous Oaxacans are Mixtec and Zapotec.
Abbreviations
- USDA:
-
United States Department of Agriculture
- EFI:
-
Ethical food initiative
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Soper, R. How wage structure and crop size negatively impact farmworker livelihoods in monocrop organic production: interviews with strawberry harvesters in California. Agric Hum Values 37, 325–336 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09989-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-019-09989-0