[lbo-talk] Politics of food

[brad bauerly]

Joseph Catron wrote:
>My impression, from having been peripherally involved in a few campaigns
>around farm labor, is that very few "family farms" refrain from hiring
>seasonal employees, and that those falling into this category are so small
>they're hardly a factor in the industry as a whole.

Alan Rudy wrote:
> Not only is Joseph right but a huge percentage of "family farms" in the US
>that don't hire seasonal employees earn the majority of their income in
>multigenerational pluriactive employment off the farm... across the
>mid-west, the majority of small "family" units now hire a farm manager (who
>also manages a number of other units) to determine what commodity to plant,
>how to maximize production and who to hire, when, to do that...

Is this some kind of a joke?

I don't have time right now to get into it but just a very quick search
found this.

"Hired farmworkers, who include farm and nursery workers, livestock workers,
farmworker supervisors, and farm managers, make up 30 percent of all
farmworkers (the other 70 percent are paid/unpaid family members)."
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/LaborAndEducation/FarmLabor.htm#Numbers