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The fresh vegetables commodity chain linking Kenyan producers with United Kingdom (UK) consumers employs significant numbers of workers in production and processing. This chain is dominated by UK retailers that determine the production imperatives of Kenyan firms upstream in the chain and, indirectly the employment strategies they adopt. This paper explores how competitive pressures are transmitted through the supply chain, and how exporters absorb these risks by placing greater emphasis on organizational flexibility and the elasticity of labor in horticultural production. The paper argues that while the industry provides substantial employment opportunities in Kenya, the commodity chain is dependent upon the "gendered" and insecure forms of employment it creates.

Temporary visa workers are increasingly taking on a heightened profile in Canada, entering the workforce each year in greater numbers than immigrant workers with labor mobility rights (Sharma 2006). This paper examines the incorporation of foreign workers in Canadian horticulture under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). I argue that foreign labor supplied under the SAWP secures a flexible workforce for employers and thus improves Canada's trade competitiveness in the global agrifood market. Using multiple research strategies, I track the evolution of Canadian horticulture in the global market and the transformation of labor in this industry. I outline the steady growth in the employment of temporary visa workers in the horticultural industry and show how they have become the preferred and, in some cases, core workforce for horticulture operations. The benefits of SAWP workers to employers include the provision of a workforce with limited rights relative to domestic workers and considerable administrative support in selecting, dispatching, and disciplining workers provided at no cost by labor supply countries. I conclude that the SAWP is a noteworthy example of the role of immigration policy in regulating the labor markets of high-income economies and thus ensuring the position of labor-receiving states within the global political economy. (Contains 3 figures and 28 footnotes.)

A resurgence of agrarianism has motivated new farmers to enter farming, not for profit, but for lifestyle and socio‐ecological values which are frequently associated with diverse economies. Proponents of diverse economies argue for an ontological reframing that accounts for non‐capitalist forms of economic exchange. However, these perspectives have not fully addressed the conditions—often structured by race and class—that facilitate participation in diverse economies. This paper is based on mixed‐methods research on the life cycle of new farmers in Hawai'i that include participants of farmer training programs. We investigate what drives new farmers into farming, by what mechanisms they are able (or not) to establish a farm, and what limits the duration of their participation. Our analysis reveals three contradictions of diverse economies in agriculture: (1) the inadvertent undervaluation of farmwork that undermines broader efforts to improve the welfare of farm labor; (2) the tension between the value of scaling up and the vulnerability of cooptation; and (3) the ways in which the duration of new farmers' engagement is structured by their ability to mobilize unpaid labor and external resources. These contradictions challenge long‐term and inclusive participation in diverse economies in ways that constrain their emancipatory potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions of farm labor emphasize that much hired labor is of a low opportunity cost, "salvage" nature and that technological advance is reducing the need for labor in agriculture. However, these ideas do not explain a trend for an increasing proportion of hired farm workers to be employed for a longer duration or for family labor to decline at a more rapid rate than hired labor. This paper proposes that these trends can be explained by the technical and commercial development, or rationalization, of United States agriculture in line with goals of organizing resources to create a profitable set of commodities with manageable risk. The analysis has several empirical implications that are borne out by national-level relationships of trends in numbers of hired and family farm workers with technical change, commercialization, and unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examine the role that human labor practices and attitudes play in mastitis infections on US dairy farms. Mastitis infection is a key barrier to sustainability in dairy production, contributing to financial losses, animal welfare concerns, and perhaps most importantly imprudent antibiotic use. We combine data from five sources on herd characteristics, owner/manager attitudes and behaviors, and labor management to empirically analyze the connections between labor practices and mastitis infection. We examine 72 conventional dairy farms in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan using survey responses from both employees and owners/managers. We find that several labor practices and attitudes like communication, training, manager attitudes, and work intensity have important and meaningful associations with mastitis infection on dairy farms, in addition to conventional veterinary management practices. We also find that key labor practices are not associated with infection rates once we control for other factors. Our findings demonstrate the ways in which aspects of sustainability are intertwined on farms, particularly labor practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using 3,130 U.S. counties or county equivalents, this paper provides a test of the impact of rural population on the violent crime of homicide, while controlling for the effects of other correlates. The results indicate that the traditional bond of group cohesion assumed to be associated with the rural environment and its residents continues to have an inhibiting effect on homicide for counties in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the effects of increased participation in federal farm programs on farm structure in two socioeconomically distinct regions. We examine (1) how farmers use the programs in conjunction with other inputs as a survival strategy and (2) specific outcomes associated with increased program participation. Our analysis is based on surveys of two farming-dependent counties typical of the Cornbelt and the Mississippi Delta. Farmers in both regions used farm programs to expand farm operations. However, there were important regional differences associated with the implementation of this strategy. These regional divergences can be attributed to differences in both past levels of enrollment in farm programs and variations in farm organization, particularly whether the farm relies primarily on household or hired labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of the social implications of agricultural organization have been cross-sectional and confined to a single region. This paper examines the relationship between the socioeconomic well-being of agricultural counties in 1970 and changes in the size and organization of agricultural production from 1949 to 1969. Two regions, the Corn Belt and the central Great Plains, are studied. Results indicate that the relationship between variables depends upon the region studied and that increases in numbers of hired farm laborers are more likely to have negative consequences for agricultural communities than are increases in the scale of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use data from the national 1980 Farm Women Survey to determine whether independent farmers differ from other farmers in their economic well-being and whether the effects of independence reflect class and family characteristics. We define "independent farmer" as a woman or a man with managerial responsibility for the farm operation who does not have a spouse regularly performing farm labor. Men without the direct farm labor of a wife did not appear worse off economically than men who had this help. Independent women farmers were worse off than women on other farms. Class position explained only some of this difference among women. Family and demographic characteristics explained the remaining effect of women's independent farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we empirically test hypotheses derived from the "convergence-divergence" theory of occupational attainment. The occupational structure of 1962 samples from rural India and rural United States have become quite divergent. The hypotheses are tested by comparing the permeability of the occupational structure of the two samples, the occupational attainment of rural males, and the occupational attainment for those who are in agricultural and non-agricultural pursuits. The data fail to support the hypothesis that the greater a society's industrialization, the weaker the influence of father's occupational status on son's education achievement. On the whole, our findings lend limited support to the convergence hypotheses and suggest a more parsimonious explanation, such as the proportion of the labor force engaged in agriculture, rather than industrialization, as a cause for such a convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matched records from the 1966, 1971, and 1976 Censuses of Canadian Agriculture permit an analysis of the "gross rate of entry" into farming and the "gross rate of exit" from farming for census farm operators for the periods 1966-1971 and 1971-1976. The data indicate that the modest net decline of 91, 924 census farm operations for the period 1966-1976 was in actual point of fact composed of a gross exit of 239, 646 farm operations (56 percent of all operations in 1966) and a gross entry of 147, 722 operations (44 percent of all 1976 operations). There were wide vaiations in rates of gross entry and exit between various provinces, different types of enterprises, total capital value of the farm investment, gross farm sales, age of operator, and days of off-farm work. The magnitude and character of these differences are discussed in the context of the dynamics of farm labor markets in highly industrialized societies. Implications for the structural dynamics of farm labor forces are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farmworkers in US agriculture encounter structural vulnerability. They are economic refugees, fleeing starvation. After risking their lives to cross the border and find work, they continue to be marginalized in society, and constantly fear deportation. Although farmwork is hazardous, it is necessary to be able to support themselves and their families. Research has found that although farmworkers are aware of the health side effects that result from exposure to pesticides, they continue to labor in conventional fields because not working is viewed as a larger risk. This study adds to that literature by asking farmworkers about preference for working in organic or conventional production. Even when organic is an option, farmworkers prefer conventional production when they earn more money in conventional. Because of their extreme economic vulnerability, the possibility of earning less income to work in a safer environment is viewed as undesirable. Rather than changing wage structure to incentivize working in organic agriculture, what is needed, in addition to more political protection for farmworkers, is increased regulation of pesticides. All agricultural workplaces should be made less toxic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based upon oral history interviews with 49 agriculturalists from Harlan and Letcher Counties. Kentucky, this paper documents the gender division of labor among these farm families, from the 1920s through the present. It also compares 17 wives' and husbands' accounts of farm work. While these data generally conform to patterns documented in previous sociological investigations of gender roles on family farms, a comparison of men's and women's accounts of farm work and life suggests several issues relevant to research on gender and farm families. First, women and men differ in their descriptions of work and in the words they use to describe farm ownership. In addition, men's discussions of the work of their wives, sisters, and daughters vary significantly from their descriptions of the work of their mothers and grandmothers. And. Finally, these accounts suggest that there are gender differences in attitudes toward farming. Each of these areas raises questions that merit further empirical investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homeownership is generally considered to have positive benefits for families and communities. However, the collapse of the housing market in 2009 led to questions about this assumption, especially for low-skilled workers whose employment is volatile. This question is particularly relevant to the farmworker population in rural communities for whom homeownership might function as the first step in the path toward social integration. In this study I ask whether homeownership impacts immigrant adaptation among farmworkers in Washington State. To answer this question researchers analyzed 2,845 responses from the Washington State Farm Worker Survey. I divided the sample into renters and homeowners and evaluated behaviors and attitudes along three dimensions: perceptions of community efficacy, civic engagement, and motivations for civic engagement. I found that when compared with those who rent, farmworkers who are homeowners tend to have a greater sense of community efficacy, are more engaged in their communities, and are more motivated to get involved in local affairs. These findings suggest that homeownership can function as a vehicle for immigrant adaptation among Washington State farmworkers. This bodes well for the future of the state's rural areas, where Latinos are increasingly becoming the majority in many agricultural communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using longitudinal panel data from the Western Chitwan Valley of Nepal, this study examines the impact of the use of modern farm technologies on fertility transition-specifically, the number of births in a farm household. Previous explanations for the slow pace of fertility transition in rural agricultural settings often argued that the demand for farm labor is the primary driver of high fertility. If this argument holds true, the use of modern farm technologies that are designed to carry out labor-intensive farm activities ought to substitute for farm labor and discourage births in farm families. However, little empirical evidence is available on the potential influence of the use of modern farm technologies on the fertility transition. To fill this gap, the panel data examined in this study provide an unusual opportunity to test this long-standing, but unexplored, argument. The results demonstrate that the use of modern farm technologies, particularly the use of a tractor and other modern farm implements, reduce subsequent births in farm households. This offers important insight for understanding the fertility transition in Nepal, a setting that is experiencing high population growth and rapidly changing farming practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural sociologists have seemingly moved away from an active interest in the plight of migrant farmworkers and the centrality of their labor in the development of U.S. agribusiness. Answering Pfeffer's (1983) call to analyze the different forms of agricultural production, I focus on the key formative period of what I refer to as the U.S. capitalist agricultural labor process. During the United States-Mexico Bracero Program, 1942-1964, U.S. agribusiness employed a coercive factory regime, introduced mechanization and increased work hazards, and employed a dual wage structure to keep Mexican contract workers at a serious disadvantage to advance their own collective well-being. This study relies upon archival and oral history research to challenge the existing theoretical approaches to the labor process in capitalist agriculture and provide a theoretical explanation that more closely relates to U.S. post-war agricultural production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological theory proposes that the evolution of societies from rural-based to urban-based forms of organization occurs as cities coordinate a widening territorial division of labor. This research assesses the efficacy of this model in Saudi Arabia and represents a crucial test of the generalizability of ecological theory. The rural-to-urban transition in that country did not preceed. as it did in much of the rest of the world, in the context of a substantial extraction of surplus from the agrarian sector and difficulties in absorbing displaced agricultural labor by the industrial sector. Despite this, and other rather extraordinary departures from typical patterns, the strong association between urbanization and the division of labor predicted by ecological theory emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of how New York state farm couples allocate their labor across on- and off-farm work domains is replicated and extended. Gender-specific models of work are developed and located within two different crops, tobacco and peanuts-soybeans, that represent two different production systems. The production methods of the dairy farmers in the study replicated correspond to the "small batch" methods of tobacco farmers and contrast with the continuous-process production system of peanut-soybean farmers. Farm, family, and individual characteristics influence the differentiation and integration of husbands' and wives' on- and off-farm work in much the same manner as revealed in the replicated study, but these new data show that the effects of these factors are mediated by crop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in the structure of agriculture have had significant consequences for the quality of life experienced by farm operators. Quality of life is a global construct that implies a sense of well-being or contentment with one's life situation or experience. Fewer people are farming larger farms, and others view farming as a less attractive career path as it has become more difficult to get started and stay in the business. In contrast, off-farm employment often is a means for retaining a farm residence and rural life-style. The study examines evaluations of recent life experience in farming and expectations for life quality in the future as a function of farm structural characteristics and selected individual attributes. Based on a random sample of farm operators, the two sets of variables are used to predict subjective well-being within farm size categories. The results show that individual characteristics tended to be more important determinants of well-being than were farm structure dimensions. Farm size and income measures had minor effects on self-ratings of well-being. Under controls, off-farm work status was not related to well-being. The determinants of well-being were particularly difficult to specify among large-farm operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an increasing interest in the off-farm employment patterns of U.S. farm families, little attention has been focused on determinants of farm family earnings. In this study, we examine data on 1,772 husband/wife farm families from the 1977 Current population Survey to assess the relative effects of family, human capital/individualistic, and labor market structural factors on the farm and nonfarm earnings of farm families. Findings reveal that our variables are more effective in explaining nonfarm earnings than farm earnings and that the interplay among family work-role organization, individualistic factors, and structural characteristics of off-farm employment is an important consideration with respect to farm family earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sexual division of on-farm and off-farm household labor is explored using telephone survey data from a random sample of New York State farm households. Interdependencies of average weekly hours of off-farm work and average weekly hours of on-farm work between mean and women are examined. The analysis also relates men's and women's on-farm and off-farm work to the use of hired labor on the farm and examines the patterns of relationships among the total sample and among households of "small" and "large" (commercial scale) farms. The results are consistent with previous research on the relationships of men's and women's on-farm and off-farm labor inputs with size of farm. Farm men and women also tend to specialize mutually in either on-farm or off-farm work, with this tendency being greatest among households of small farms. The results also suggest a tendency for hired labor to substitute for women's on-farm labor input, with this substitution being greater among households of large farms. A preliminary empirical typology of farm men's and women's off-farm and on-farm labor inputs is presented that indicates the importance of conceptualizing family labor allocation patterns in terms of joint work role structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural development is not a unilinear process. Variability in farm structure is explained by differences in the economic, social, and political factors present at a particular time and place. The management of farm labor poses distinctive problems because of the natural conditions of agricultural production. The farm structure characteristic of a particular area is determined by the interaction of labor management constraints imposed by the natural conditions of production with particular economic, social, and political conditions. This position is considered through historical analysis of the genesis of corporate farming in California, sharecropping in the South, and family farming on the Great Plains. Each of these systems of farm production initially arose under conditions of concentrated ownership of land. But because of differences between the regions in the possibilities of mobilizing a farm work force, different systems of farm production were established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm wage rates pa day without board, January 1, 1938, were 3.75 times as great in California as in South Carolina. Wage rates per month without board were 4.17 times as great. The bold western peak was attained by series of rises. Both daily and monthly wages changed gradually from South Carolina across the Old South with additional gradual increases across the Western Cotton Region. Abrupt increases were registered across New Mexico, through Arizona, and into California. Factors associated with these changed were: increases westward in ability to pay high wages; decreases westward in the competition of the family unpaid labor; competitive wage rates in the oil and metal mining industries; differences in the efficiency of workers; and elevation westward of rural standards of living. Additional factors in Arizona were the proportions of Mexicans among farm laborers and competitive urban and rural wage rates on public works projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm labor in the South comprises four major groups: (1) unpaid family workers, (2) year-round workers, including sharecroppers, (3) seasonal workers and (4) migratory workers. The Southeast as compared with the nation has proportionately more unpaid family workers, more hired laborers when sharecroppers are included, greater seasonal variation in demand due to the one-crop system and relatively few migratory laborers. The Southeast is also characterized by a dense agricultural population, a greater proportion of the gainfully employed in agriculture than elsewhere in the country and a large amount of female agricultural labor. The historical background of labor in the Southeast and the fact that 40 per cent of the present agricultural laborers are Negro profoundly influences the whole structure of labor relations. The many problems involved are not subject to ready solution but must be comprehended in view of a planned agriculture, which should include labor as an integral part of the agricultural structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the first meeting of the Permanent Agricultural Committee of the International Labor Organization (I.L.O.). The Committee consists of 42 members, which may vary from time to time as the governing body may decide. They were drawn from 24 nations including all of the agricultural countries except Russia, Italy, and Germany. The latter two countries withdrew from the I.L.O. Japan, on the other hand, continues its affiliation with the I.L.O. and had a representative on the Committee. The Committee is composed of three general elements - representatives of employee organizations, representatives of employer organizations, and so-called experts. The latter group are drawn from nominees submitted from different countries and from other international bodies, such as the International Institute of Agriculture which furnished six members. The agenda provided to the Committee by the governing body of I.L.O. was to look into the problems of agricultural labor in the various countries and their relative importance, child Labor in agriculture, holidays with pay and hours of work in agriculture.

The article focuses on the problem of stabilizing the migrant farm laborers of California. The lot of the migrant farm laborer is not a happy one, particularly in the Pacific Coast states. To some extent these same deplorable conditions exist in other highly seasonal industries, such as the salmon fisheries and lumbering, for example. In these latter industries, however, the labor force consists more largely of single men, or at least of men whose families do not travel with them. Thus despite the problems of intermittent work and low incomes, their situations do not present the far-reaching social problems which are found among the migrant agricultural workers. This general problem has been present in one form or another for generations. Always it has been complicated by diversity of race and custom and, in all later periods, by farming systems dependent on labor supplies for which operators do not have continuous responsibility through the year. This lack of responsibility for the laborer in slack seasons is not, to be sure, greatly different from the situation which prevails generally in industrial concerns. For reasons later discussed, however, this problem is somewhat uncharacteristic for most farming sections of the United States.

Through the use of survey data from a large sample of Michigan and Wisconsin farm operators, economic variables, organizational variables and personal variables are related to sets of attitude items dealing with policy preferences for three types of public approaches to agricultural organization and a major private alternative, collective bargaining. In general, the independent variables were found to be modestly related to the attitudes, with the organizational variables outranking the economic and personal variables in these relationships. It is hypothesized that voluntary organizations are uniquely important for farmers as factors which intervene between economic or personal situations and economically relevant attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of surveys and conferences have been conducted over the past decade dealing with the educational problems of migrant farm laborers in the U.S. Many found that the amount of horizontal mobility manifested by families is directly related to the children's retardation in school. This relationship seems quite understandable in view of the migration patterns shown by these families, in which the children must move from school to school, often after the school year has started and/or before it has ended. It is doubtful, however, that horizontal mobility is the sole or even the most important, factor associate with the children's age-grade placement. Several studies have shown that factors such as the educational attainment levels of parents and their expectations regarding theft children's education tend to be positively related to the children's academic performance. The purpose of this study was to analyze relationships between migrant children's academic performance and certain socio-educational factors.

In order to establish the relationship of personal traits and characteristics with the success of Village Level Workers in the service of the National Extension Service, 178 Village Level Workers of the eight districts of Bombay State, India, were selected by stratified randomization. Two main tests- Check-List Rating and Physical Accomplishments Score-were employed to differentiate between the most effective and least effective Village Level Work- ers. The most effective Village Level Workers were in the age group of SE to 40 years, had graduated from high schools, were married, and had rural backgrounds and aptitudes for social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of projective techniques have been utilized in recent years by psychologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, market researchers, and rural sociologists. Although originally developed for the clinical situation, some of these projective techniques have proved to be useful in field interviews as well. The purpose of this research note is to describe the methodological aspects of the use of projective techniques in a study of reference group influences in the adoption of farm practices. In a series of field interviews with central Iowa farm operators in 1955, using direct questions and a printed interview schedule, the authors attempted to secure information about the important reference groups and their influence upon adoption. It was difficult to formulate questions to elicit the desired type of information, and the respondents did not seem to view this as a socially-acceptable topic about which they would give answers. Few of the 148 farm operators were willing to admit on the basis of direct questioning that any reference group influenced their farming decisions.

The article discusses reaction of a some rural families to a recently established community in a reclaimed area of Zuider Zee in the Netherlands. It also analyses some facts as the difference in the degree of satisfaction of wives of farm operators and agricultural laborers with community planning and housing, evidences of emergence of a social community and the success of planning of the village community. For the analysis, one village community of the Northest Polder is studied and the data were obtained by interviewing 122 housewives whose husbands were either farm operators or agricultural laborers and from various governmental officials who had assisted with the reclamation project. The wives of larger-farm operators were better educated, were more mobile, and had more community and extra community contacts than wives of smaller-farm operators and agricultural laborers. And they were better satisfied. There was no significant relationship between size of family, length of marriage, religious preference and occupational status. The results show that tenure is related to the degree to which families were satisfied with community planning and housing. As a whole, it can be concluded that community planning is getting success and a social community is emerging.

The article presents information on several bulletins of interest to rural sociologist. Two bulletins "The Impact of Fluctuation in National Income on Agricultural Wages and Employment," by Howard L. Parsons and "The Organizability of Farm Labor in the United States," by Alexander Morin are the condensed versions of doctoral theses written in the field of agricultural labor. Both theses consist of marshalling and examination of existing data in an effort to arrive at new understandings and new principles. Both are so coolly analytical of ordinarily controversial matters that they carry with them something akin to a detachment from reality. In the first of these analyses, Parsons examines the extent to which and the ways in which fluctuations in national income affect farm wages and employment. National income data for 1910 to 1945 are compared with similar series of figures in regard to farm wage rates, farm employment, farm output, net farm income, farm population, net migration to and from farms, and other lines of data.

The following findings are reported in this article: (1) Farmers who belonged to a major, general-interest farm organization had higher social and economic status than unorganized farmers. Significant differences were found in nine of ten variables. (2) Organized farmers were not significantly different from unorganized farmers in factors which might affect ability to participate in meetings: nearness to good roads, mobility, and family composition. (3) Scarcely any significant differences could be found between Farm Bureau members and Farmers' Union members. (4) In Pittsburg County, an area of very low rural level of living, and among farm laborers in the four counties where they were interviewed, almost no general farm organization memberships were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Labour Organisation (ILO)—now a specialised agency of the United Nations is one of the oldest international organisations. It was created immediately after the end of the first World War at the same time as the League of Nations, and celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. In spite of its long and active history, it would appear that the Organisation's activities, particularly in the sphere of agricultural labour, are not sufficiently known among professional workers in the rural social sciences of the North American continent. The purpose of this article is to review briefly the functions of the ILO and the kind of questions with which it deals in the agricultural field. The machinery of the Organisation consists of several parts, including the International Labour Office, which acts as the secretariat, world information centre and publishing house. The Governing Body is the executive council of the Organisation and exercises general supervision over the work of the Office.

The historical fact setting the stage for this analysis is that planters of the South generally ignored agricultural machinery many years after mechanization had become common in the North and West. People connected with the southern plantation system were divided into distinct classes, with ownership of land concentrated in the upper class and vertical mobility up the agricultural ladder virtually impossible for the masses. Because of this, in 1930, class struggle was imminent and precipitated the change to technology. Two developments bear primary causal relations to the advent of machines on southern fields. The plantation system has or is changing to technology as a result of social processes set in motion by the unionization of agricultural laborers and strengthened by landlord adjustments to the AAA program. The situation was brought to a climax through the mass abandonment of the fields by the workers during World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current farm labor situation is intensified by cultural factors which have prevented full use of the nation's rural manpower. The status of the farm worker is at the heart of the farm labor situation. He has commonly been a seasonal worker in commercial crop areas, or he has been an underemployed subsistence farmer in areas of low physical resources. Moreover, in commercial crop areas where farm workers have had low status, many middle- and upper-income families have traditionally done little actual farm work. As a result of these cultural factors, rural manpower in many parts of the nation has been chronically under-used. Current wartime pressures are breaking down some of the cultural barriers to the full use of rural manpower. With effective motivation, a few thousand underemployed rural dwellers have already been transferred to areas where there are severe shortages of farm labor. Members of farm families with "overseer" traditions are beginning to look upon farm work as a patriotic opportunity. Employed townspeople and urban high school and college students are helping the farmers in many parts of the country. The increased use of these various sources of labor on farms can be speeded up by developing local, State, and Federal programs grounded upon an understanding of the cultural factors involved, region by region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural-labor problem of the Union of South Africa is complicated by the competition between commercial agriculture and industry for labor, by racial and cultural heterogeneity, by the impact of an exchange economy upon a primitive tribal economy, by the unbalanced distribution of labor supply in relation to industry, and by the pressure of population on land. The effects of these disturbing factors are evidenced by social and economic instability, problems of health and nutrition, and low standards of living. Efforts to increase the efficiency of native agriculture arc being made, but funds available are woefully inadequate. The agricultural-labor problem cannot be solved without some modifications in the entire domestic economy of South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landlessness is a concept which may be clarified by considering systematically all classes of farm people and agricultural workers. Landlessness is a matter of degree. On one extreme, at the top of the agricultural ladder is the full-owner operator with an adequate size farm unit; and at the other extreme is the unemployed agricultural worker who has no permanent home. Between these two extremes are: wage workers, migratory and resident; unpaid family workers; hired managers; share- croppers; full tenants; part-owners; and full-owners. Farmers who have mortgages or who have small units or poor land may to such extent be considered partially landless. According to this concept, estimates are made of the extent of landlessness in the United States as of 1940. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the agricultural migrant lies only partly in the realm of agriculture. Much of the distress of recent years has resulted from a decrease in urban employment which in earlier periods absorbed large numbers of workers of rural origin. The bad effects of these tendencies have been increased by rapid mechanization and drought in the farm areas. The problem is likely to increase in the years just ahead. The numbers now seeking a living on the land cannot be absorbed as agricultural entrepreneurs and workers except by vast changes in the structure of the agricultural economy. Tenant-purchase and the breakup of large holdings offer only limited possibilities. Cooperative farming does not provide an adequate solution. Improved tenancy legislation would help. Publicly sponsored development of small industries along the lines of the British Trading Estates program might provide substantial betterment in some areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of the adoption of control policies upon the welfare of the farm laborer is often ignored. Industrial control policies, especially those relating to prices and volume of production, have a bearing upon. His ability to find employment, whether on the farm or in industry, and upon rural wage rates Labor control policies relating to wage rates and "working rules," whether enforced by a trade union or by the government on behalf of labor, affect purchasing power and the demand for farm products, the volume of industrial job opportunities open to labor from the farm, and the competition for jobs on the farm. The effects of crop adjustment are the most direct of all but are difficult to measure because of the influence of mechanization and associated factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews several bulletins related to sociology. "Unemployment and Partial Employment of Hired Farm Workers in Four Areas: A Summary Report"; "Unemployment and Partial Employment of Hired Farm Workers in Roswell and Artesia, New Mexico, May 1951-May1952"; "Unemployment and Partial Employment of Hired Farm Workers in Selected Areas of Louisiana," by Eleanor M. Birch and Joe R. Motheral; "Unemployment and Partial Employment of Hired Farm Workers in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, May, 1952," by Lester Rindler and William Mirengoff; Others.

Sociologists in convention assembled may be the windiest of American scholars, but no one in justice can accuse them of being overly optimistic. The author does not mean to suggest even by the slightest implication that the first of these characteristics, windiness, applies to sociologist B.O. Williams' objective, balance and clearly reasoned discussion of the impact of mechanization of agriculture on the farm population of the South. There are three considerations, according to the author that tend to lighten the prevailing mood and to offer perhaps some glimmer of hope. The consideration revolves upon the questions that the displacement of southern farm labor hinge in the long run upon the ability to consume farm products; due to low consumption of fruits, vegetables and meats, is it unreasonable to forecast that southern farm economy in the future may be turned in the direction of producing these deficiencies; how far the mechanization of agriculture will disrupt the farm family institution.