Rural America

California: Welfare and Farm Jobs
California's Central Valley, 430 miles long and up to 75 miles wide, covers nearly fifteen million acres, about the size of England. The Central

Meat and Poultry
The INS in 1998-99 devised new ways of discouraging US employers from hiring unauthorized workers without disrupting production or bothering US

Hispanics, Poverty, Southeast
The Census Bureau reported that there were 25.2 million foreign-born residents of the US on July 1, 1998—making them 9.3 percent of US

Farm Workers

UFW: Coastal, Napa
On August 17, 1999, the ALRB Regional Director counted the ballots in the June 3-4, 1999 election at Coastal Berry and put the final tally at 725

Washington: Housing
The number of seasonal farm workers employed in Washington varies from about 14,000 in January to nearly 70,000 from June into October. The

States: Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee in August 1999 accused a farmer near Toledo, Ohio of not paying some of the 110 workers hired to pick

California: Safety Housing
On August 9, 1999, 13 tomato sorters were killed in Fresno County when the van in which they were riding collided with a tractor-trailer truck

Farm Labor Data
California's minimum wage is $5.75 an hour; the federal minimum is $5.15. Workers earning less than twice the minimum wage, $11.50 an hour, must

Immigration

Agricultural Guest Workers
In the early 1980s, the percentage of unauthorized workers among US farm workers was 20 to 25 percent and rising, farm wages and benefits were flat

H-2As, Mechanization, h-2Bs
The US State Department issued 27,061 H-2A visas to foreign farm workers in 1998, up sharply from 20,689 in 1997. About 80 percent of H-2A farm

INS: Border
A farm labor contractor in Florida, Abel Cuello Jr., was sentenced to 33 months in prison by a federal court in Tampa in October 1999 and ordered

Other

Canada: Guest Workers
There are about 11,000 foreign farm workers in Ontario Canada in 1999—most are from Mexico and the Caribbean, and they are admitted for up to

Census of Agriculture
The 1997 Census of Agriculture ( [url=http://www.usda.gov]http://www.usda.gov[/url] ) reported that there were 1.9 million farms in 1997, the same number as in 1992—a farm

US Food System
Farming the smallest part of the three-part food and fiber system, which consists of: 1.) input industries such as banks, chemical

Resources

ABA Looks at Farm Workers
On Friday, August 6, 1999 the American Bar Association, meeting in Atlanta's World Congress Center, presented a Presidential Showcase entitled:

State of the Great Central Valley
In July 1999, the Great Valley Center released a report, The State of the Great Central Valley of California, that recommends that the 19-county,