The Farm Labor Problem: A Global Perspective explores the unique character of agricultural labor markets and the implications for food production, farm worker welfare and advocacy, and immigration policy. Agricultural labor markets differ from other labor markets in fundamental ways related to seasonality and uncertainty, and they evolve differently than other labor markets as economies develop. We weave economic analysis with the history of agricultural labor markets using data and real-world events. The farm labor history of California and the United States is particularly rich, so it plays a central role in the book, but the book has a global perspective ensuring its relevance to Europe and high-income Asian countries. The chapters in this book provide readers with the basics for understanding how farm labor markets work (labor in agricultural household models, farm labor supply and demand, spatial market equilibria); farm labor and immigration policy; farm labor organizing; farm employment and rural poverty; unionization and the United Farm Workers movement; the Fair Food Program as a new approach to collective bargaining; the declining immigrant farm labor supply; and what economic development in relatively low-income countries portends for the future of agriculture in the United States and other high-income countries. The book concludes with a chapter called "Robots in the Fields," which extrapolates current trends to a perhaps not-so-distant future. The Farm Labor Problem serves as both a guide to policy makers, farmworker advocates and international development organizations and as a textbook for students of agricultural economics and economics. - Describes the unique character of agricultural labor markets providing consequential insights - Contextualizes the economics of agricultural labor with a global perspective - Examines the history of farm labor, immigration, policy and collective bargaining with a view to the future

Operations Management in Agriculture bridges the knowledge gap on operations management for agricultural machinery. It complements traditional topics (cost of using and choosing machinery) with advanced engineering approaches recently applied in agricultural machinery management (area coverage planning and sequential scheduling). The book covers new technologies in bio-production systems (robotics, IoT) and environmental compliance by employing a systems engineering perspective with focuses on sub-systems, including advanced optimization, supply chain systems, sustainability, autonomous vehicles and IT-driven decision-making. It will be a valuable resource for students studying decision-making and those working to improve the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of production through machinery choice. Covers agricultural machinery management related courses and a number of other courses within the agricultural engineering discipline Provides core tools for machine operations management, including machinery selection and cost of usage Presents current knowledge for agricultural machinery management in a science-based format

In 1975, after vigorous campaigning by the United Farm Workers union, the state of California passed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA), a pioneering self-help strategy granting farm workers the right to organize into unions. A quarter century later, only a tiny percentage of farm workers in the state belong to unions, and wages remain less than half of those of nonfarm employees. Why did the ALRA fail? One of the nation's foremost authorities on farm workers here explores the reasons behind its unfulfilled promise.Philip L. Martin examines the key features of the farm labor market in California, including the shifting ethnicity of the worker pool and the evolution of the major unions, beginning with the Wobblies. Finally, he reviews the impact of immigration on agriculture in the state.Today, many states look to the California experience to assess whether the ALRA can serve as a model for their own farm labor relations laws. In Martin's view, California's efforts to grant rights to farm workers so that they can help themselves have failed because of continued unauthorized migration and the changing structure of farm employment. Martin argues that alternative policies would make farming profitable, raise farm worker wages, and still keep groceries affordable.

Focusing on the complex and often contradictory relationships between agricultural production and markets, Labor, Markets, and Agricultural Production examines the micro-macro linkages between farm production, farm labor issues, and the degree of autonomy or dependency vis-Ã -vis markets. By comparing the case of farmers in Peru, generally regarded as peripheral agricultural producers, with that of European farmers able to easily access the centralized markets of the EEC, Dr. van der Ploeg is able to draw general conclusions about the ongoing process of commoditization of agriculture and the roles farmers play in agrarian development.

This volume is written primarily for agricultural economists doing research on productivity. It includes discussions of the theoretical underpinnings of productivity measurement as well as the many practical considerations that go into translating this theory into actual measures of aggregated outputs and inputs. The unifying concept of agricultural productivity used across the chapters of this volume is aggregate total factor productivity (TFP) of the sector. The volume also contains detailed analysis of the underlying causes of agricultural productivity growth. Part I (chapters 2-6) examines agricultural productivity in high-income and transition countries. Part II (chapters 7-11) examines agricultural productivity growth and its driving forces in five important agricultural producers in Asia and Latin America. Part III (chapters 12-14) focuses on measuring and identifying constraints to agricultural productivity growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Part IV (chapters 15-16) gives a global perspective on agricultural productivity.

Historical account of the social conflict between agricultural workers and agribusiness, and the role of state intervention in California, USA - analyses agricultural trade unionism since 1870, immigration of Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans and Filipinos, and its regulation; examines the economic recession of the 1930s, rise of rural worker organizations, internal migration, and state-enrolled contract labour; reports on the formation of the United Farm Workers and its struggle for trade union recognition, opposition, and state mediation. Bibliography.