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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