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This article analyzes the growing role of multinational companies in agri-food chains and their impact on the structure of local production and agricultural labor through the case study of berries grown in the Oxnard, California, area and Mexican immigrant farm workers. She looks specifically at the strategic management of agreements on supply, agricultural technology, and land by commercial companies, together with the effects of partial harvest mechanization and the multi-level system of labor intermediation. The author observes how the evolution of agri-food capital, which according to the analysis of the food regime, constitutes a reorganization of capital in general, influences both the circulation of capital and the social relations of production. She has based her research on a combination of quantitative and, above all, qualitative, techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economics, Sociology and Geography have provided theoretical schemes explaining permanent migration. Neo-classical economics, the new economics of labor migration, social capital theory, transnational theory and dual labor market theory offer partial and contradictory explanations of permanent migration. Therefore, an understanding of why labor migrants who arrived to work temporally are staying permanently in the receiving societies must be relied on interdisciplinary approaches. This paper explores the reach of main theoretical schemes of permanent migration in order to understand why some farm workers who came to Tamaulipas to work in orange picking during the season stayed permanently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theories that explain migration are heavily weighted toward labor "supply-side" factors. However, from the analysis of the selection process of Tamaulipas' farm workers employed in the United States, it is possible to conclude that migration dynamics are fashioned by the recruitment role of employers, "attraction" forces being imposed and reshaped by "expulsion" forces. Demand shapes the workings of migration networks. Therefore, the decision about who migrates does not depend on migrant workers; it is predetermined from the demand-side. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Ciencias Sociales (13159518) is the property of Revista de Ciencias Sociales de la Universidad del Zulia Venezuela and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Tamaulipas presents a long tradition of rural migration to the United States in search of farm employment. Until the eighties, Tamaulipas' undocumented workers crossed the border easily. However, starting in the nineties, as a result of a restrictive migration policy centered exclusively on the "supply-side", crossing the border has become difficult. As a result, most immigrants are using the services of "smugglers". This paper analyses the impact of the militarization of the frontier on the emigration of Tamaulipas' illegal rural workers seeking farm jobs in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the exposure of indigenous and mestizo farm workers to environmental and agrochemicals pollution in the tobacco industry in Mexico.

Copyright of Papers: Revista de Sociologia is the property of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Farm workers represent one of the poorest sectors of the population in Mexico, including Baja California. This study compares the welfare levels of a mostly immigrant population of indigenous workers from San Quintín Valley with those of mestizo farm workers from Mexicali Valley. Surveys were conducted between 1997 and 2000 by the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California and the Instituto Nacional Indigenista, based on the parameters proposed by the Unsatisfied Basic Needs method to measure poverty level. In general, the comparison did not reveal significant differences in welfare levels between both agricultural valleys, even though the populations compared were not homogeneous (one indigenous and the other mestizo). Both groups of families were found to live in poverty, and approximately one in four in extreme poverty. Nutrition proved to be the most unsatisfied need for both groups, followed by education. Most of the farm workers in both valleys earned minimum wage, or twice the amount, despite the region's high cost of living. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]