How wage structure and crop size negatively impact farmworker livelihoods in monocrop organic production: interviews with strawberry harvesters in California
How wage structure and crop size negatively impact farmworker livelihoods in monocrop organic production: interviews with strawberry harvesters in California
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工资结构和作物规模如何对单一作物有机生产中的农场工人生计产生负面影响：对加利福尼亚州草莓收割机的采访
DOI：
10.1007/s10460-019-09989-0
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发表时间：
2020
影响因子：
4.5
通讯作者：
R. Soper
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
R. Soper
由于有机认证标准制度化了基于产品而不是基于过程的定义，因此经过认证的有机产品可以在大规模工业化单一作物农场种植。除了投入物的毒性外，这些农场的运作方式与传统生产方式大致相同。学者们强调，劳工权利已被排除在认证标准之外，正因为如此，有机农场再现了与传统农场相同的劳动关系。然而，对有机农业劳动力的实证研究主要依赖于农民的视角。在这项研究中，我问农场工人自己如何收获有机农场相比，传统的，并发现在有机工作的负面影响农场工人的生计。在加州的奥克斯纳德，36个草莓收割机的定性访谈显示，农场工人在传统的草莓生产中赚更多的钱，因为工资结构和浆果大小之间的相互作用。传统的草莓更大，因此很少能装满一个盒子。农场工人通常会挑选更多的传统盒子，而不是有机盒子，因此收入更高，因为在计件工资制度下，农场工人是按盒子支付工资的。考虑到短期的经济生存而不是长期的职业健康问题，草莓收获者宁愿在传统农场工作，因为“la fresa orgánica es más chiquita“（有机草莓更小）。
Because organic certification standards institutionalized a product-based rather than process-based definition, certified organic produce can be grown on large-scale industrial monocrop farms. Besides toxicity of inputs, these farms operate in much the same way as conventional production. Scholars emphasize the fact that labor rights have been left out of certification criteria, and because of that, organic farms reproduce the same labor relations as conventional. Empirical studies of organic farm labor, however, rely primarily on the perspective of farmers. In this study, I ask the farmworkers themselves how harvesting on organic farms compares to conventional, and found that working in organic negatively impacts farmworker livelihoods. Qualitative interviews with 36 strawberry harvesters in Oxnard, California reveal that farmworkers make more money in conventional strawberry production because of the interaction between wage structure and size of the berry. Conventional strawberries are larger and therefore fewer of them fill up a box. Farmworkers routinely pick more boxes in conventional than in organic, thus earning more, since under the piece rate system, farmworkers are paid per box. With short-term economic survival rather than long-term occupational health concerns in mind, strawberry harvesters would rather work on conventional farms because “ la fresa orgánica es más chiquita ” (organic strawberries are smaller).