Potpourri of migrant related news from Rural Migration News

[Guest guest]

FOR HHS-HEO COMMUNITIES' DIGEST SUBSCRIBERS

The January 2004 issue of " Rural Migration News " provides an interesting

potpourri of migrant-related news affecting immigrant farm workers in California

and the United States during the preceding quarter. Topics are grouped by

category and offer a broad range of information covering: Rural Areas, Farm

Workers, Immigration, Resources and other information. For this release, I

highlighted excerpts from the e-mail version, which includes about 20,000 words.

I hope that you will find the information to be of interest.

If you wish to subscribe to the newsletter, send your email address to:

rural@... <mailto:rural@...>

Current and back issues can be accessed at: http://migration.ucdavis.edu There

is no charge for the email Migration News.

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Air Quality

The Los Angeles basin, home to 17 million people, had its best air quality in a

quarter century in 2004, failing to meet the federal one-hour ozone standard on

27 days, compared with 68 in 2003 and 150 days in the 1970's and 1980's.

Ground-level ozone is formed when auto emissions and vapors from volatile

compounds like paints and solvents " cook " in the atmosphere, and are worsened

when warm air is trapped near the ground.

Seven of the top 10 urban areas for bad air, including the first four, are also

in California, in a band through the San Joaquin Valley from Sacramento to

Bakersfield. The 25,000-square-mile San Joaquin Valley violated the eight-hour

or daylong smog standard 240 times, the most days of violation in the US. Some

300,000 San Joaquin Valley residents, about 10 percent, suffer from a chronic

breathing disorder and 16 percent of the children in Fresno County have asthma.

Education

California's schools are in trouble, according to a 2005 Rand report that cited

declining per-pupil funding, growing enrollments, relatively flat teacher

salaries and large classes. If the problems are not fixed, the report concluded

that California will not have the educated labor force it needs to be

competitive. Among the findings: California's fourth- and eighth-graders since

1990 have consistently scored lower on reading and math tests than most of their

peers across the country; California's classrooms had nearly 21 students per

teacher in 1999-00, compared to 16 per teacher nationally.

California has six million public school students -13 percent of the nation's

school-age children-and a rising share of them are from low-income families or

are immigrants who are still learning English. The two key state initiatives

affecting education were Proposition 13 in 1978, which set limits on annual

property tax increases and shifted school funding power from local to state

government, and Proposition 98, which set minimum spending levels for school

funding.

US Budget

The US budget, $2.3 trillion in FY04, ran a deficit of $412 billion, meaning

that tax revenues were 16 percent and spending was 20 percent of the $11.5

trillion GDP. About 85 percent of federal spending is very hard to reduce,

including the 20 percent going to Social Security, the 20 percent going to

Medicare and Medicaid health-insurance, and the 20 percent for defense. Interest

payments on the federal debt, about seven percent of federal spending, exceed

federal spending on education, housing, transportation, science, space and

technology combined.

Medicaid, which covers the poor and disabled, has become the nation's largest

health program, and costs the states and the federal government more than $300

billion a year. States spend more on Medicaid than on elementary and secondary

education combined.

Tobacco

Southeastern tobacco farmers are the largest employers of H-2A guest workers,

but the number of migrants could fall sharply because of a federal tobacco

buyout bill approved as part of a corporate tax-break law. Both the House and

the Senate approved plans in 2004 to buy out the tobacco quotas farmers need to

receive government-guaranteed prices for their crop. This offers a $10 to $12

billion windfall to quota or allotment owners, a third of whom are in North

Carolina. The quotas were issued in the late 1930s to prop up grower prices and

incomes. Farmers who do not own a quota pay $0.35 to $0.40 a pound to lease a

tobacco quota from owners, and then are guaranteed a government-set price of at

least $1.85 a pound. There are about 430,000 holders of tobacco quota and one

percent are expected to receive more than $1 million each.

Changing Faces

Georgia has four of the six counties in which Hispanic residents are growing

fastest; 30 of Georgia's 159 counties saw their Hispanic populations increase by

at least 40 percent between 2001 and 2004. Georgia has 8.7 million residents,

including 541,000 Hispanics.

The face of the Shenandoah Valley in western Virginia has been changed by

immigration, as seasonal apple pickers settled and took year-round jobs in

poultry processing plants.

The Labor Market Effects of the 1960s Riots

Between 1964 and 1971, hundreds of riots erupted in American cities, resulting

in large numbers of injuries, deaths, and arrests, as well as in considerable

property damage that was concentrated in predominantly black neighborhoods.

There have been few studies of a systematic, econometric nature that examine the

impact of the riots on the relative economic status of African Americans, or on

the cities and neighborhoods in which the riots took. We present two

complementary empirical analyses. The first uses aggregate, city-level data on

income, employment, unemployment, and the area's racial composition from the

published volumes of the federal censuses. We estimate the " riot effect " by both

ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares. The second empirical

approach uses individual-level census data from the Integrated Public Use

Microdata Series for 1950, 1970, and 1980. The findings suggest that the riots

had negative effects on blacks' income and employment that were economically

significant and that may have been larger in the long run (1960-1980) than in

the short run (1960-1970). We view these findings as suggestive rather than

definitive for two reasons. First, the data are not detailed enough to identify

the precise mechanisms at work. Second, the wave of riots may have had negative

spillover effects to cities that did not experience severe riots; if so, we

would tend to underestimate the riots' overall effect.

To view the report, go to:

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Econ/wparchive/workpaper/vu03-w24.pdf

Foreign Born

The 2000 Census reported 31 million foreign-born US residents, up from 20

million in 1990; 52 percent of the US immigrants were from Latin America. Social

scientists examining census data say that one of the most striking patterns is

the decline of marriage. One in three babies nationally, and two in three among

Blacks were born out of wedlock. Almost 30 percent of Black and Hispanic

children lived in families that had incomes below the poverty line.

Americans are mobile, but most do not move long distances. Almost two-thirds of

Americans lived in the state where they were born in 2000, but in the 15 months

before the census, about 20 percent of the 105 million households changed

residences.

Janitors

Albertsons Inc., Ralphs Grocery Co. and Safeway Inc.'s Vons supermarkets in

southern California agreed to pay $4,500 to $9,300 each to 2,100 janitors who

were classified as subcontractors and underpaid from 1994 to 2001. Janitors

employed by the supermarkets worked for a national contracting firm, Encompass

Services or Building One Service Solutions (now in bankruptcy), which in turn

used more than 200 subcontractors who claimed that the workers were independent

contractors earning $250 a week for 70-hour weeks, or less than the minimum

wage. In 2001, the supermarkets agreed to raise janitors' wages, either by

hiring them directly or hiring union contractors. Under the settlement pushed by

the monitoring group Maintenance ation Trust Fund, the grocery stores

admitted to being joint employers with the cleaning contractors. Wal-Mart faces

a similar suit. Federal agents in 2003 raided 60 Wal-Mart stores in 21 states

and arrested 250 janitors, accusing them of being illegal migrants from Eastern

Europe.

In a separate case, Wal-Mart is accused of discriminating against female

employees by paying them less and promoting them less often. In summer 2004, a

San Francisco federal judge allowed up to 1.5 million women to file a

class-action suit against Wal-Mart, making it the largest discrimination case

ever- Wal-Mart is appealing the class-action certification. Across the US,

full-time working women earn 80 percent of what men do, a median $560 a week

compared to $693 a week in 2004, up from 62 percent in 1979, reflecting the

rising educational levels of women. Women narrow the gap most during recessions,

such as 1990-91 and 2001.

Unions

California allows people to become lawyers via apprenticeship, and the UFW runs

an apprenticeship program for aspiring lawyers; the State Bar estimates that 30

people are doing a law apprenticeship at any one time. UFW founder Cesar Chavez

saw former UFW General Counsel Jerry Cohen mentor young volunteers, and

established the United Farmworkers School of Law program about 1980; current UFW

General Counsel Marcos Camacho is a graduate of the apprenticeship program.

Unions representing supermarket workers threatened to strike in Northern

California to protest demands that they pay some of their health care costs; a

strike in southern California in 2003 affected 60,000 workers for four and a

half months. That strike was settled with a two-tier plan under which newly

hired workers will receive lower wages and fewer health care benefits than

established workers.

About 13 percent of US workers belong to unions, down from a peak 33 percent in

1955; only 8.2 percent of private-sector workers are union members. Stern called

for the AFL-CIO's 60 unions, 40 of which have fewer than 100,000 members, to be

consolidated to 20 or less in what was seen as a challenge to the former head of

the SEIU and current AFL-CIO president, J. Sweeney, who must stand for

re-election in July 2005.

Americans in opinion polls favor unions more than Canadians, but since the

mid-1960s, the percentage of Canadian workers in unions has been greater than

the share of US workers in unions. Lipset et al say that the answer is the

deep-seated American tradition of individualism and laissez-faire economic

values, which makes US workers more reluctant to join unions. Canada has a more

statist, social democratic tradition that makes them more supportive of unions

and gives unions more power, but paradoxically lowers public approval of unions.

Midwest

The Michigan Migrant Legal Assistance Project sued Brady Farms, a blueberry

grower, on behalf of 3,000 workers employed there between 1999 and 2004,

alleging that deductions for housing and other services brought wages below the

minimum. MLAP, which is seeking class-action status for damages of up to $1,500

per worker, settled a lawsuit against Brady on behalf of 43 workers for $63,000

in 2003. According to MLAP, Brady's crew leaders rented apartments to the

workers and charged them for transportation to the fields. A similar suit was

filed against Arkansas-based Gillam Farms, charging that 38 H-2A workers did not

earn at least the minimum wage in the 2002 blueberry picking season.

Texas

In 1979, Mexican-American onion harvesters in ville, Texas went on strike

for higher wages, and their struggle was made into a documentary, " Valley of

Tears. " On the strike's seventh day, Mc businessman Othal Brand broke the

strike after he bought the onion crop and hired outside workers to pick the

onions. Brand, a former Mc mayor, blames outsiders for persuading local

workers to go on strike, but the Mexican-Americans now in power say that,

without the strike, Anglos would still dominate local politics.

South Texas was ruled for decades by ranchers such as those of the Kenedy and

King families under which the patron, or boss, provided cradle-to-grave

compensation to Hispanic employees in exchange for a lifetime of loyalty and

labor. The 400,000-acre Kenedy ranch in Sarita was bequeathed after Kenedy's

death in 1948 to organizations supporting the Roman Catholic Church in Texas,

but a local man has come forward to claim that he is the grandson of Kenedy. The

Catholic Church opposes his efforts to exhume Kenedy's body for DNA tests.

Northeast

A woman from Mission Texas, , operated farm labor camps in Genesee

and Orleans counties in western New York and pleaded guilty to a felony charge

of forced labor in December 2004; she is expected to receive a 46-month prison

term. Prosecutors allege that deducted travel costs from the pay of

unauthorized migrants who were prevented from leaving until she was repaid. In

one case, 50 workers shared a single house with one bathroom. The US Attorney

said that " deliberately recruited illegal aliens as workers and imposed

heavy and artificial debts in order to maintain a cheap, compliant and indebted

work force. They were isolated, scared and trapped. "

New York State's minimum wage will increased from $5.15 an hour to $6.75 on

January 1, 2006 and $7.15 by January 1, 2007, bringing to 16 the number of

states with minimum wages above the federal level.

The oyster catch from the Chesapeake Bay has been declining, from more than two

million bushels in the 1970s and 1980s in land to 15,000 in 2004. Employment

has fallen from thousands to 150, and there has been a similar decline in the

Virginia catch.

Northwest

USDA's Rural Development agency provided most of the $1.5 million for a new

13-unit apartment complex for 75 farm workers that opened in Spring Lake, Utah

in fall 2004. However, no farm workers moved into the complex in the first

months that it was opened, perhaps because residents had to be legal US

residents. USDA regulations require that tenants earn less than 80 percent of

the area's median annual income, $56,000, and that most of their income come

from farm work. Renters pay 30 percent of their income.

The South

The Department of Labor issued $60,000 in fines for farmers and farm labor

contractors in South Carolina in November 2004, primarily for violations of

housing rules involving workers harvesting cucumbers, melons and tobacco between

May and September. Most of the workers were housed in used mobile homes, and a

third of the violations were in Horry County.

Hurricanes

There were conflicting reports on the effects of the four hurricanes that swept

across Florida in August -September 2004 on the cost and availability of

workers. Many advocates worried that, with so much of the citrus crop destroyed,

there would be too many workers chasing too few jobs. However, many farmers

complained that, with clean up and construction jobs readily available that paid

$8 an hour or more, farmers could not find enough workers to pick their crops.

Many migrant farm workers were in northern states when hurricanes hit,

destroying their winter mobile and older homes. Some newly arrived migrants said

that they could not stay in Florida because the hurricanes had destroyed citrus

and fern crops. Some farmers said that they faced labor shortages because many

farm workers who got experience cleaning up after the storms were able to move

to construction. Advocates, saying that migrants " support the economy, but the

economy does not support them, " want farm workers to have easier access to

federal disaster assistance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has brought

new mobile homes to Florida, and allows those with at least one US-born child

who lost housing to live in them rent-free for 18 months.

Health and Insurance

A study of 600 Mexican migrant workers in Fresno and San Diego counties found

that one percent are infected with HIV, three times the rate of HIV infection in

the general US and Mexican populations. The study said that men in the US

without their families engage in high-risk behavior, including sharing needles

to inject antibiotics and vitamins.

California voters approved Proposition 72 on a 51-49 vote, overturning a state

law scheduled to be effective in January 2005 that would have required

California employers to provide health insurance for their workers. About 5.3

million Californians lack health insurance, and the voters approved three other

health-related initiatives: Proposition 63 will tax people earning $1 million or

more a year to improve mental health programs, borrowing $750 million to improve

and expand facilities at children's hospitals. Proposition 71 allows the state

to issue $3 billion in bonds for stem cell research, allowing grants of $300

million a year for a decade to researchers.

About 63 percent of working age US workers receive health care insurance from

their employers, down from 70 percent in the mid-1980s. One reason is that

fast-growing companies such as Wal-Mart do not offer health insurance, or they

offer insurance but require such high worker contributions that many part-time

workers do not participate. Wal-Mart has 1.2 million associates, making it the

largest private US employer, and says that 58 percent of those eligible

participate in health insurance plans to which the company contributes. A

quarter of its employees are not eligible for health insurance, but Wal-Mart

says that 90 percent have health insurance, including senior citizens on

Medicare, students covered by their parents' policies or employees covered by

second jobs or working spouses. Critics say that most workers earning $8 to $10

an hour cannot afford contributions of as much as $250 a month for family health

insurance; Wal-Mart requires employees to pay a third of the premium. About 96

percent of eligible Costco employees are covered by company health insurance

plans, and Costco employees become eligible after three months full-time or six

months part-time work, while Wal-Mart requires a six-month wait for full-time

workers, and up to two years for part-time workers.

Some believe that Kaiser Permanente is the wave of the future. Kaiser has 11,000

physicians and 135,000 other workers, owns 30 hospitals and hundreds of clinics

and generates $25 billion a year in revenue by serving eight million members, 70

percent in California. Kaiser emphasizes preventive care and the management of

chronic diseases, trying to avoid the typical spending pattern in which 90

percent of heath care spending is for 30 percent of the population, and half of

the spending goes to five percent of the population. Kaiser incentives are the

opposite of typical insurance plans, which reimburse for each test and hospital

stay.

Bush: Migrants

During his year-end press conference on December 20, 2004, President Bush said:

" it makes sense to allow the good-hearted people who are coming here to do jobs

that Americans won't do a legal way to do so[sic]. And providing that legal

avenue, it takes the pressure off the border...this is not automatic

citizenship. The American people must understand that, that if somebody who is

here working wants to be a citizen, they can get in line like those who have

been here legally and have been working to become a citizenship [sic] in a legal

manner. " Bush aides said that he would introduce or support a bill to implement

his January 2004 proposal to give an unlimited number of unauthorized foreigners

who have found US jobs three-year renewable work permits. At the end of six

years, Bush guest workers would have to leave the US unless their US employers

sponsored them for immigrant visas or they found another way to remain.

Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Kennedy (D-MA) were reportedly working on

a bipartisan bill for comprehensive immigration reform in December 2004. Bush is

expected to mention immigration reform in his inauguration address on January

20, 2005, and the McCain-Kennedy bill is expected to try to deal with Bush's

opposition to " amnesty " and the Democrats opposition to a " guest worker only "

option for unauthorized foreigners in the US.

Perspective - Migration

There have been three major changes in Mexico-US migration patterns over the

past five years. First is the diffusion of the origins and destinations of

Mexican migrants- migrants come from more states in Mexico, both rural and urban

areas in those states, and more are women. Once in the US, Mexican migrants are

traveling to more US states, working in an ever wider range of nonfarm

industries and services, and settling, in part because of the difficulty

unauthorized migrants have re-entering the US.

Second, there is a significant new influx of indigenous Mexican migrants, such

as non-Spanish speaking Zapotecs and Mixtecs arriving from southern Mexico.

These indigenous migrants are among the poorest Mexicans, and their increased

mobility within Mexico and to the US reflects economic changes in Mexico. For

example, some indigenous people are moving from southern Mexico to Zacatecas to

fill in for local workers who have left for the US; others move directly to the

US.

Third is the rising number of highly skilled Mexican migrants in the US. About

10 percent of all Mexican-born persons and 15 percent of Mexican-born workers,

are in the US but, at 17 percent, the percentage of Mexicans with at least a

high-school diploma who are in the US is even higher. Since Mexican migrants

traditionally came from rural areas and were employed in US agriculture, the

rising number of highly educated migrants marks a new development that may

accelerate: since January 1, 2004, most North Americans with at least a BA have

been able to move between Canada, Mexico and the US to accept jobs.

H-2As, Braceros

Some 6,564 farm employers requested 45,716 H-2A workers in FY03, and DOL

certified the need of 6,360 farmers for 44,033 workers, that is, 97 percent of

employers had their need for 96 percent of their requested H-2A workers

certified (http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/foreign/h-2a_region.asp). As in

past years, North Carolina had the most H-2A certifications, for 9,600 workers,

including 83 percent to harvest tobacco, followed by Georgia, with 3,600 workers

certified, including 75 percent to harvest vegetables.

The H-2A program is expanding into new states and farming activities, with 20

Iowa farmers employing 250 H-2A workers in 2003 from South Africa, Mexico and

China. The largest user was Bell's Melons, which had 60 H-2A workers for the

watermelon harvest and 112 for corn detasseling; the AEWR in Iowa was $9.28 an

hour in 2004. The H-2A program is designed to admit temporary foreign workers to

fill temporary US jobs, but several Iowa livestock producers have been certified

to employ H-2A workers for seasonal aspects of their business, such as farrowing

pigs.

In the western states, H-2A sheepherders have been used for decades to tend

sheep, often those grazing on public lands. Unlike most H-2A workers,

sheepherders are allowed to stay in the US for three years, and their monthly

wage varies by state. For instance, the 2004 pay in Wyoming was $650 a month

plus food, airfare, clothes and lodging. The Salt Lake City-based Western Range

Association, which handles recruitment, says 82 percent of its 800 H-2A

sheepherders are Peruvian, 12 percent are Chilean and the rest are mostly

Mexican. Many herders come from the village of Huancayo in central Peru. In the

past, there were few problems with H-2A herders disappearing, but in 2004, some

ranchers reported that 25 percent of their herders disappeared.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reported that 27,697 foreigners

entered the US with H-2A visas in FY01, 15,628 in FY02, and 14,094 in FY03-the

peak in recent admissions was 34,000 in FY00. The same H-2A worker can fill

several certified farm jobs; in FY03, there were 9,900 Mexicans admitted with

H-2A visas, 2,500 Jamaicans, and 600 South Africans. After farm employers have

their need for H-2A workers certified, they are free to recruit foreign farm

workers in any way they want. There are a wide range of brokers and lawyers

providing recruitment services to farmers.

Braceros

The Mexican government created a $26 million fund (fideicomiso) to compensate

3,000 Bracero workers who had 10 percent of their wages withheld from US

employers during World War II and transferred to a Mexican bank, but did not

receive the withheld wages. There are 80,000 to 90,000 former Braceros

registered with the Mexican Interior Ministry who allege that they did not

receive their withheld wages. The Mexican government estimates that there are

800,000 former Braceros who are still alive, and that 80 percent live in Mexico.

There were 4.6 million admissions of Braceros between 1942 and 1964; many

workers returned year-after-year, and between one and two million unique

individuals participated. Mexican credit unions and banks are likely to handle

the payments in Mexico, while Mexican consulates will be asked to do the same in

the United States.

Border, Sanctions

The Border Patrol reported 1,159,802 apprehensions on the Mexico-US border in

FY04, up from 931,557 in FY03 and 955,310 in FY02. Each person apprehended was

fingerprinted, enabling the Border Patrol to ascertain that 741,115 individuals

were apprehended in FY04; 638,480 in FY03; and 693,798 in FY02. In FY04, 36

percent of those apprehended had been previously apprehended, 32 percent in FY03

and 27 percent in FY02. About 52 percent of FY04 apprehensions were in Arizona.

The number of unauthorized foreigners as estimated by the Urban Institute rose

from 3.5 million in 1990 to 9.8 million in 2003. Two-thirds of the unauthorized

are in six states: California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New York and New

Jersey. The foreign-born US population was 34 million in March 2004, including

10.5 million born in Mexico.

The Los Angeles Times profiled a Mexican biologist nearing the completion of his

MS degree who died in the Arizona desert en route to a Florida mushroom farm,

one of 325 deaths along the border reported by the US Border Patrol in FY04. The

36-year old had a job in Mexico, earning $10 an hour teaching karate, and had

three brothers who provided support. However, after finding a job advertised in

Orlando, he set out, even though he did not have the work permit the company

told him he would need. He found a smuggler who offered to get him to Orlando

for $2,700, and set off for Altar, a community of 7,000 just south of the

Mexico-US border. As vans packed with migrants head north, Mexican Grupo Beta

agents warn them of the dangers of attempting to cross the desert, but do not

stop them from leaving Mexico.

In May 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering trailer truck

in , Texas. During the trial of three defendants in December 2004, the

federal prosecutor said that recruiters, guides and drivers " treated people

[migrants] worse than cattle on the way to the slaughterhouse. " The truck

driver, to be tried separately, faces the death penalty.

In June 2004, Border Patrol agents set off panic and controversy by patrolling

and making arrests hundreds of miles from the U.S.-Mexico border in southern

California cities. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the

US Customs and Border Protection agency, seeking information on who authorized

the sweeps and the names of those who talked to agents. In July 2004, DHS said

that agents had broken department policy by not clearing this type of operation

with Washington headquarters.

Saying that it had to verify their identities, US Customs and Border Protection

officers in December 2004 fingerprinted and photographed dozens of US citizens

who attended a religious conference in Toronto when they returned. CBP was

accused of religious profiling by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The

Justice Department's Inspector General said that there is not yet a unified

system that gives Justice, DHS, and State access to the government's expanding

fingerprint database.

Sanctions

DHS's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforces employer sanctions

laws, but has been reducing its enforcement efforts: in FY03, 124 employers were

fined, down from 909 in FY95. Between 1999 and 2003, some 11,714 US employers

were investigated for immigration violations and 692 were fined for hiring

unauthorized workers. The number of ICE hours devoted to worksite enforcement

fell from 471,210 in 1999 to 177,975 in 2003. Since 1986, fewer than 25

employers have been fined over $75,000 for hiring unauthorized workers. The FY05

DHS budget includes an additional $5 million for work-site enforcement,

suggesting that enforcement priority remains on the border.

Operation Vanguard, which involved subpoenaing hiring documentation from

employers to check for discrepancies such as invalid Social Security numbers and

then asking workers with discrepancies to clear them up before the INS visits

the work place, was stopped in 1999 after complaints from meatpacking firms, the

Hispanic community and the Social Security Administration, which refused to

continue checking SSNs. During Vanguard, the INS subpoenaed and checked hiring

documents for 24,000 workers employed by 40 meatpacking plants. Discrepancies

were found in the documentation of 4,762 workers, most of whom quit before the

INS arrived to check employees- only 34 were arrested.

Water/Air

Western states have had five dry years, and analysis of tree rings suggests that

there have been mega-droughts in Western North America in AD 936, 1034, 1150 and

1253; the centuries between 900 and 1300 were unusually dry, with the dryness

attributed to warming.

The year 2004, punctuated by four powerful hurricanes in the Caribbean and

deadly typhoons lashing Asia, was the fourth-hottest on record, extending a

trend since 1990 that has registered the 10 warmest years, according to the

World Meteorological Organization. A sustained increase in temperature is likely

to continue disrupting the global climate, increasing the intensity of storms,

potentially drying up farmlands and raising ocean levels. The warmest year on

record was 1998, since accurate readings began to be taken in 1861.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires rollbacks in carbon dioxide emissions in

industrial nations by 2012, was rejected by the US in 2001. It formally enters

into force on February 16, 2005, and will limit carbon dioxide emissions from

12,000 industrial plants across the European Union; most are involved in

electricity generation, steel, paper, glass, refining and cement. The EU has

embraced a cap-and-trade system: emissions are caps, and permits to emit will be

traded on the European Climate Exchange. Before Kyoto went into effect, a permit

for the right to release one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere traded

for E6 to E8. China and other industrializing countries are exempt from Kyoto;

30 industrial countries signed it. Carbon dioxide, a byproduct of automobile

engines, power plants and other fossil fuel-burning industries, traps heat that

otherwise would escape the atmosphere, producing a greenhouse effect that raises

global temperatures. The United States accounted for 21 percent of the world's

emissions of carbon dioxide in 2000.

US Ag

Farm income doubled between 2002 and 2004, and federal farm subsidies reached

$16 billion in 2004; total farm income was $73 billion [the record year for

subsidies was 2000, when subsidies of $20 billion were almost half of the $47

billion in total farm income]. About 70 percent of the subsidies go to the top

10 percent of US agricultural producers; 150,000 of America's 2.1 million farms

produce 70 percent of the major food crops, but subsidies are confined to major

grains such as wheat and corn, sugar, rice, cotton and diary products. Despite

record farm subsidies, rural areas continue to lose people: half of US rural

counties lost population in the 1990s.

Indicators

US GDP- the value of goods and services produced in the US economy each year is

$11 trillion. The value of US farm land and buildings is about $1 trillion.

Other US values in 2004 were the value of US commercial and residential real

estate, $28 trillion; the value of US bonds, $23 trillion; and the value of US

stocks, $13 trillion- US stocks account for half of the value of the world's

stocks.

Wine

Most of the 2.7 million tons of grapes crushed for wine in 2003 were grown in

the Central Valley of California; two million tons or 75 percent. The fastest

growing wine grape region is Lodi-Woodbridge, which crushed 522,000 tons in

2003, up 130 percent from 1993; followed by San Obispo-Santa Barbara,

156,000 tons and up 75 percent. The Napa crush was 128,000 tons, up 15 percent

from 1993. The largest wine grape area is Fresno/Madera, which had a 2003 crush

of 919,000 tons.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in December 2004 about restrictions on

interstate wine shipments. The 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition in

1933, gave states the power to tax and control the flow of alcoholic beverages

within and across their borders. Most states set up a " three-tier " system:

producers, state-licensed wholesalers and state-licensed retailers. Most states

now have only a handful of politically connected wholesalers, and small wineries

want to get around them by shipping their wines directly to consumers in the 24

states that prohibit out-of-state wine shipments to customers' homes.

Retail wine sales are about $20 billion a year, and Costco, Sam's Club and

Trader Joe's accounted for more than five percent of wine sales in 2003. The

wine industry wants to expand distribution in non-traditional outlets and with

non-traditional wine drinkers by putting wine in juice-style boxes, plastic

bottles and aluminum cans, and making wine available at ball games, picnics and

concerts. A major question is whether consumers will accept wines with screw top

caps and in boxes: eliminating the need for corkscrews may make wine more

consumer friendly, and especially bars and restaurants pouring wine by the glass

prefer to receive wine in boxes.

In mid-2004, 12 Mexican American families and one Mexican in Northern California

were making and selling wine under their own labels, up from two Latino wine

makers in 1991. Most of the Latino wine makers began as grape growers, but

others worked their way up in the industry or made money outside grapes and wine

and invested in wine making.

Obesity, Food Safety

Since 1960, Americans gained an average one inch in height, so that men averaged

69 inches and women 64 inches in 2002. They are also 25 pounds heavier-men are

191 pounds and women 164 pounds-- so that two-thirds of US adults are now

overweight or obese.

Economic explanations for rising obesity focus on two major factors: the

decreased cost and increased convenience of fast foods and the rise of working

women. The number of fast-food outlets per capita doubled in the US between 1992

and 1997, compared to a 35 percent rise in full-service restaurants per capita,

and low-cost fast food tends to have high caloric density and are satisfying.

Second, with more women working for wages, but real wages declining for those

with little education, fast-food becomes a substitute for home-cooked meals in

low-income households. Declining smoking may also have contributed to weight

gain, since smokers on average eat less.

Food Safety

Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. in December 2004

warned that terrorists might attack the US food supply. Between 2001 and 2004,

the US government increased the annual number of inspections of food imports

from 12,000 to 100,000, sampling about two percent of imported foods. The Food

and Drug Administration issued a rule requiring food producers to keep records

so that, in the event of an outbreak, officials can track suspect food to its

source and halt distribution. The only known instance of food bioterrorism in

the United States occurred in 1984 and went unsolved for a year. Members of a

religious cult poisoned a salad bar in The Dalles, Oregon, and the crime was not

discovered until some cult members accused others, prompting experts to warn

that it could be hard to detect terrorists bent on poisoning the US food supply.

Nafta, Cafta

A NAFTA-appointed panel in November 2004 concluded that the unintended spread of

US genetically modified corn in Mexico -- where the species originated and

modified plants are not allowed -- poses a potential threat that should be

limited or stopped. The NAFTA report suggested that large-scale imports of US

corn probably resulted in the spread of the GMO varieties, since Mexico does not

allow them. The modified corn does not pose a health risk, but the environmental

consequences are less well understood. The EPA and USTR issued a statement

condemning the report, saying that implementing its recommendations " would

increase the cost of US corn significantly, negatively affecting Mexico's

livestock producers and consumers. "

Poinsettias, native to Mexico, were introduced to the United States in the 1820s

by the first US ambassador to Mexico, Poinsett, and are today the

most popular indoor flower plant in the United States; some 68 million were

produced in 2003.

Canada and the US have the largest free trade relationship between any two

countries in the world, with goods worth $1.2 billion crossing the border every

day (Canada had a $70 billion trade surplus with the US in 2003). The US has

banned imports of live cattle from Canada since a mad cow was found in Alberta

in May 2003, and kept the ban in place through 2004, leading to lower cattle and

land prices in Canada; the ban will be relaxed in 2005. High US tariffs on

Canadian lumber have also led consolidation of that industry in Canada, and

about 50 mills have closed; in both cases, Canadians say US protectionism is at

work.

CAFTA. The Central American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 2003 but not yet

approved by Congress, would liberalize trade among the United States and five

nations - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua - and

potentially the Dominican Republic. Oxfam, which opposes CAFTA, urged its

rejection because of the threat of subsidized US rice exports, which Oxfam

argued could displace thousands of small Central American farmers. US sugar

growers oppose CAFTA, fearing increased imports.

Supermarkets are spreading in developing countries, including Central America,

and many small farmers find themselves unable to meet the standards for fruits

and vegetables that they set. Young urban consumers prefer supermarkets, which

demand consistent quality and quantity from farmer suppliers. Many small farmers

are unable to provide this consistency, even if they form coops and receive

technical assistance, forcing them to sell their produce in dwindling farmers'

markets. Efforts to help small farmers to deal with supermarkets center on

proposals to provide more credit and assistance, monitor the power of

supermarket buyers, and enact laws requiring that farmers be paid promptly.

Employment in the Central American coffee industry has shrunk from 1.7 million

in 1999 to 1.2 million in 2004, largely because of increased production in

countries such as Vietnam. With the help of US coffee buyers and aid groups,

Central American coffee producers have tried to increase quality, hoping to

command higher prices for better beans. Americans spent $20 billion in 2003 on

coffee, and $5 billion on tea.

Brazil

Brazil has become the new agricultural superpower, producing farm commodities

worth $150 billion a year (US farm sales are $200 billion a year), and becoming

the world's leading exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee and

tobacco. With 175 million cattle, Brazil became the leading exporter of beef in

2003, and is on track to become the leading exporter of soybeans. The key to the

Brazilian farm miracle in crop farming has been improving the cerrado soil with

lime and phosphorus to dramatically raise yields. The cerrado cuts across the

heart of Brazil, and land prices even after recent rises are still cheap, often

several hundred dollars an acre. The jungle is razed for conversion first into

cattle pasture and then, as the agricultural frontier advances, into fields for

soybeans and other crops. However, with land 1,000 miles from the coast, it is

sometimes hard to get crops to market. Brazil is one of the few agricultural

exporters not to have granted blanket permanent approval to the planting of

genetically modified crops like soybeans, corn and cotton. However, 10 to 20

percent of the 50 million metric tons of soybeans harvested from the 2003-04

crop were believed to be genetically modified, and Monsanto's Roundup Ready

soybeans are widely planted in neighboring Argentina.

The End

Ruiz

Assistant Director, Systems Development and Policy Administration

Migrant Health Coordinator

National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc.

7200 Wisconsin Avenue Suite 210

Bethesda, MD 20814

(301) 347-0442

(301) 347-0459 FAX

(202) 365-0154 Cell Phone

jruiz@...

www.nachc.com

" Youth is the gift of nature but age is a work of art. "

- Garson Kanin

Mark your calendar now for the 2005 National Farmworker Health Conference,

Caribe Hilton, San , Puerto Rico May 12-14, 2005. Watch NACHC website at

www.nachc.com for further program and registration information as it becomes

available.