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University of California Press

Labor and the Locavore

The Making of a Comprehensive Food Ethic
by Margaret Gray (Author)
Hardcover Paperback eBook
Price: $29.95 / £25.00
Publication Date: Oct 2013
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9780520276697
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 11 b/w photographs, 1 map, 1 table
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ONE

Agrarianism and Hudson Valley Agriculture

When today's Hudson Valley growers are lionized in the pages of foodie magazines or the travel section of the New York Times, they are depicted as practicing a dying trade and preserving open space for the cultural and environmental good. Many of the region's farmers see themselves as part of a hardscrabble agricultural tradition (my own hometown in the region celebrates an annual "Hardscrabble Day"), and certainly their precarious economic position relative to owners of factory farms supports this perspective. Many of their ancestors came from very humble backgrounds, and some struggled against the oppressive tenant system of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though they may own hundreds of acres of land and hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of farm equipment, their ability to stay afloat from year to year is never assured. Yet advocates of open space preservation see farmers' valiant fight to "hold on" as a defense against the developer's bulldozer.

At the same time, these farmers are enjoying the revival of interest in Hudson Valley agriculture by living up to the idealism of boutique farms, heritage fruit, pick-your-own venues, and branded products. Farmers' markets have proliferated all over the region, and numerous restaurants tout local products on their menus. "Violet Hill

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About the Book

In the blizzard of attention around the virtues of local food production, food writers and activists place environmental protection, animal welfare, and saving small farms at the forefront of their attention. Yet amid this turn to wholesome and responsible food choices, the lives and working conditions of farmworkers are often an afterthought.

Labor and the Locavore focuses on one of the most vibrant local food economies in the country, the Hudson Valley that supplies New York restaurants and farmers markets. Based on more than a decade’s in-depth interviews with workers, farmers, and others, Gray’s examination clearly shows how the currency of agrarian values serves to mask the labor concerns of an already hidden workforce.

She also explores the historical roots of farmworkers’ predicaments and examines the ethnic shift from Black to Latino workers. With an analysis that can be applied to local food concerns around the country, this book challenges the reader to consider how the mentality of the alternative food movements implies a comprehensive food ethic that addresses workers’ concerns.

About the Author

Margaret Gray is Associate Professor of Political Science at Adelphi University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Is Local Food an Ethical Alternative?

1 • Agrarianism and Hudson Valley Agriculture
2 • The Workers: Labor Conditions, Paternalism, and Immigrant Stories
3 • The Farmers: Challenges of the Small Business
4 • Sustainable Jobs? Ethnic Succession and the New Latinos
5 • Toward a Comprehensive Food Ethic Methodological Appendix

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

"By teasing out the complications of a single sliver of the 'alternative' food system, Labor and the Locavore points the way forward for foodies."
— Dissent
"Gray is a nuanced, thorough and evenhanded writer, which makes her argument all the more convincing."
— NY 1
"As Margaret Gray discusses in her excellent book, 'Labor and the Locavore,' we cannot achieve ethical consistency in producing food without paying attention to labor. . . . For food to be affordable, people — all people — must earn living wages; alternatively, good food must be subsidized. Both conditions would be even better."
— New York Times, The Opinion Pages
"Gray deftly crafts her arguments . . . This book is exceptionally researched and would make an excellent and challenging addition to
undergraduate courses on sustainability as well as graduate courses in public scholarship."
— Agriculture and Human Values
"An inspiring example to current and future scholars of food and agriculture."
— Agricultural History
"Gray illuminates issues that even the most thoughtful among us have been turning a blind eye toward regarding the experience of many farm workers."
— Food, Culture, and Society
"An important contribution to the discussion of alternatives to the conventional food system."
— Green Left Weekly
"Gray has shifted our discussion of food ethics back to the humans who, by their hands, give us our daily bread."
— Labor Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas
"[An] excellent book . . . broad and balanced."
— Labor Studies Journal
"Labor and the Locavore represents a powerful corrective to a major shortcoming in the food politics movement. . . . Gray’s
work shines a bright light on precisely this side of the equation and highlights the need for a comprehensive food ethic that encompasses both environmental and social justice."
— Labour-Le Travail
"Gray exposes the stark reality of farm labor conditions in the Hudson Valley’s regional food economy . . . An important contribution to the literature on social justice in agriculture."
— New Labor Forum
"Gripping reading . . . Gray’s success in uncovering injustice within the locavore movement in the Hudson River Valley is irrefutable."
— Perspectives on Politics
"Labor and the Locavore is a timely and important antidote to much of today’s popular food writing. . . . I definitely recommend the book."
— Progress in Human Geography
"Gray compiled a vivid picture of the living and working conditions of farmworkers in the Hudson Valley. . . . She reminds us that a progressive transformation of our global and local food systems cannot be achieved without securing justice for all food workers."
— Progressive Planning
"Gray smartly argues that we must attend to the working conditions of individuals employed by farmers. . . . this book will be an eye-opening experience for anyone who cares about what they eat."
— Women, Food, and Ag Network
"Labor and the Locavore combines a wide-ranging historical perspective with the insights of contemporary fieldwork... Gray's tenacious commitment to examining the broad context of persistence and change in the injustices experienced by Northeast farmworkers offers an inspiring example to current and future scholars of food and agriculture." 
— Agricultural History
"Labor and the Locavore is a timely and important antidote to much of today's popular food writing on eating local. Forthright and rigorous in its depiction of labor conditions on small farms in New York's Hudson Valley—the hub of the New York City local food system—Margaret Gray shows that labor abuses are not unique to industrial scale agriculture—or to California." —Julie Guthman, author of Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism

"Small may be beautiful; when local it may be even better. But as Margaret Gray’s beautifully written ethnography shows, the romance with the small and the local focuses on the conditions under which produce is grown while ignoring the conditions endured by the immigrant workers planting, picking, and tending the locally grown food that socially conscious consumers so desire. Focusing on that iconic symbol—the small, family-owned farm—this carefully researched, extensively documented book sheds new light on the ways in which immigration has transformed all corners of American life and in so doing has confronted farmers, consumers, and workers alike with difficult yet ultimately resolvable dilemmas." —Roger Waldinger, author of How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor

Awards

  • Best Book Award - Labor Project APSA 2014, American Political Science Association (APSA)
  • ASFS 2014 Book Award 2014, Association for the Study of Food and Society