I was admittedly skeptical when I first learned that the Agricultural Justice Project (AJP) had embarked on a strategy of certification for labor and trade practices. As much as I appreciated the long-overdue and serious effort to address the needs of workers in ecological farming, and very much admired the people behind the effort, I felt it was the wrong strategy. Through my research on organics, I had already written a great deal about the paradoxes of voluntary labels as a way to support better farming and trading practices. Among other things, I had noted that they devolve regulatory action to consumers and their market choices, who generally must pay a premium for these choices (thus discouraging participation by low-income people), and that they encourage those already under any given certification rubric to raise standards to uphold price premiums, working at cross purposes to widespread transformation. Along with colleagues, I had additionally critiqued a strategy that put growers in the position of attesting to their own beneficence in regard to farm labor as opposed to allowing or even encouraging farmworkers to organize on their own behalf, through unions or other collectivities (AJP was to become one of a few rare exceptions in this last regard). And it was pretty evident that few growers would do this anyway.
At the same time, I was highly sympathetic to how the conditions of possibility had been narrowed so as to make other pathways seem pie in the sky, particularly in the early days of the neoliberal attack on public action when certification took hold. The original organic growers, for example, went down this road because they understandably saw little hope that “command and control” regulation could work. A government that had supported some of the worst farming practices was highly unlikely to ban or highly restrict the use of toxic chemicals and synthetic fertilizers. Those oriented toward social justice issues faced a history in which farm work had been exempt from even the most rudimentary labor laws, making strengthening those laws seem a particularly distant possibility. Likewise, unions were under constant attack from both the right and the left, and the once formidable UFW had made some well-documented strategic mistakes under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, including the omission of undocumented workers in organizing efforts.
As some have argued, standards and certification could work to bring about change in less structured ways than regulation per se. They could bring more attention to farming and labor practices – as they certainly have; they could cast aspersions on conventional farming practices and bring shame – as they also have. Indeed, this is one of the reasons that the livestock sector in particular fought hard, even against voluntary labels with anti-disparagement laws. (Conventional livestock producers have a lot to hide.) And they could help mobilize a broader food and farming movement that would push for the kinds of policy change that would force all growers to do better. That one didn’t pan out as hoped.
All that said, we are at a very different political moment than when standards and certification came on the scene. The emphasis on freedom (as in consumer freedom) that was a hallmark of neoliberal governance seems quaint with the still-shocking rise of fascism in the U.S. Many of us find ourselves defending institutions that we never wholeheartedly supported – USAID comes to mind – and seeking desperately to save programs that were never enough (e.g., SNAP benefits). And we see even speech that is not friendly to the administration criminalized and rhetorical attacks on just about everything not to the administration’s tastes, especially if it was associated with Democrats. So if the Obamas had a garden on the White House lawn and expressed their love of arugula, it’s a near guarantee that anything remotely evoking those aesthetics could come into Trump’s crosshairs.
In this new context, I would not be surprised if we find ourselves fighting to save voluntary labels and standards, as they might really be the only way we can have some sort of choice in what we eat and what kind of farming we support. For these reasons and more, this assessment of the work of the AJP is most welcome at this time. It is imperative that we continue to look for spaces of possibility.
Julie Guthman
Distinguished Professor of Sociology Emerita
Program in Community Studies
University of California, Santa Cruz