Farmers and consumers 'marginal' to the industrial agro-food system occupy the interstices of this network . . . (t)hese tangential spaces represent sites of alternative strategies which build on traditional production practices centred on subsistence and 'informal' market networks, or are bound up with new social movements associated with non-agridturd or non-food issues. (Whatmore 1995, p. 47) The social basis for a democratic food policy lies in movements for employment and incomes, for safe and nutritious food, for environmentally sensitive agriculture (includmg treatment of animals) and for democratic participation . . . Democratic principles . . . emphasize proximity and seasonality -sensitivity to place and time.This means the use and development of technologies and markets to facilitate local enterprises in every possible link of agrofood chains. What is increasingly clear is that healthy food and environmentally sound agriculture must be rooted in local economies. (Friedmann 1993, p. 55) RGAMC AGRICULTURE IS frequently heralded as one of the frontiers of a 0 'new' environmentalism where concerns about food safety, land use and social justice are converging with a politics of re-localization.' Indeed, the provision of organic food crops -from farm to table -would appear to countervail many contemporary trends in the production, processing, distribution and marketing of food in general. Yet, explosive growth since the 1980s is both cause and effect of a proliferation of new entrants who are attempting to capture the lucrative niche markets lurking behind organic products and the organic label? Consequently, the field is experiencing rapid changes in production and marketing strategies, and a restructuring of economic imperatives. And while a plurality of economic and ideological actors continue to thrive within the

Certified organic and Fair Trade food products are making their way into the mainstream among Western consumers and, as such, are increasingly viewed as sustainable and preferable alternatives to the conventional food system, with its many negative social and environmental externalities. Two case studies discussed in this paper indicate, however, that operationalizing the goals for organic and Fair Trade food via certification can be a complex and difficult process. Specifically, the implementation of certification creates a disconnect between expectations raised by labels and the ‘lived experience’ of small farmers. In the case of small farmers in Mexico growing certified organic tomatoes and herbs, certification exacerbated socio‐economic inequality and disrupted local social norms by creating a hyperfocus on surveillance. In the case of small farmers in the Dominican Republic growing Fair Trade bananas, the certification process prioritized the demands of the market to such a degree that the farmers were largely unaware that they were participating in anything ‘alternative’, and it simultaneously reinforced socio‐economic inequalities within the communities. These findings suggest that if the appeal of certified labels rests on the integrity of what the label represents to consumers, then such consumer movements would benefit from a more robust analysis of how certification intersects with and affects local spaces, cultures and communities at the point of production.

ABSTRACT. Agricultural systems are embedded in wider social-ecological processes that must be considered in any complete discussion of sustainable agriculture. Just as climatic profiles will influence the future viability of crops, institutions, i.e., governance agreements, rural household and community norms, local associations, markets, and agricultural ministries, to name but a few, create the conditions that foster sustainable food systems. Because discussions of agricultural sustainability often overlook the full range of social dimensions, we propose a dual focus on a broad set of criteria, i.e., human health, labor, democratic participation, resiliency, biological and cultural diversity, equity, and ethics, to assess social outcomes, and on institutions that could support diversified farming systems (DFS). A comparative analysis of case studies from California's Central Valley, Mesoamerican coffee agroforestry systems, and European Union agricultural parks finds that DFS practices are unevenly adopted within and among these systems and interdependent with institutional environments that specifically promote diversified farming practices. Influential institutions in these cases include state policies, farmers' cooperatives/associations, and organized civic efforts to influence agroenvironmental policy, share knowledge, and shape markets for more 'sustainable' products. The Californian and Mesoamerican cases considers organic and fair trade certifications, finding that although they promote several DFS practices and generate social benefits, they are inadequate as a single strategy to promote agricultural sustainability. The complex governance and multifunctional management of Europe's peri-urban agricultural parks show unexpected potential for promoting DFS. Unless DFS are anchored in supportive institutions and evaluated against an inclusive set of social and environmental criteria, short-term investments to advance diversified agriculture could miss a valuable opportunity to connect ecological benefits with social benefits in the medium and long terms.

Much of the attention by social scientists to the rapidly growing organic agriculture sector focuses on the benefits it provides to consumers (in the form of pesticide-free foods) and to farmers (in the form of price premiums). By contrast, there has been little discussion or research about the implications of the boom in organic agriculture for farmworkers on organic farms. In this paper, we ask the question: From the perspective of organic farmers, does ''certified organic'' agriculture encompass a commitment to ''sustainability'' that prioritizes social goals? Specifically, we aim to broaden our understanding of the relationship between social sustainability and organic agriculture by drawing attention to issues affecting farmworkers, whose labor and contribution tends to elude most discussions of organic agriculture. We present findings from a survey of organic farmers in California about the possible incorporation of social standards into organic certification criteria. Our findings suggest that, at best, lukewarm support for social certification within organic agriculture exists among certified organic farmers in California. They also question expectations that organic agriculture necessarily fosters social or even economic sustainability for most of the farmers and farmworkers involved. However, we also find exceptions to the patterns evidenced in our survey. In-depth interviews with select organic farmers demonstrate that there are individuals whose practices are atypical and demonstrate that, under some circumstances, an organic production system can be at once environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable.

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Sustainable agriculture is among the most urgently needed work in the United States, for at least three reasons: we face an environmental crisis, a health crisis, and a rural economic crisis. Addressing these pressing crises through sustainability transition will require growing our agricultural workforce: both because the current farm population is aging, and because sustainable agriculture is knowledge-intensive work that substitutes experiential knowledge of farm ecosystems for harmful industrial inputs. Given its social value, sustainable agriculture ought to be a welcoming profession. But at present, US agriculture is decidedly unwelcoming for nearly all who work in it – and it puts new entry and sustainable farmers at a distinct disadvantage. In this paper, we first examine why it is so hard to enter and succeed in sustainable farming. We find that new entrants struggle to gain critical access, assets, and assistance, encountering substantial barriers that stand between them and the land, capital, markets, equipment, water, labor, and training and technical assistance they need to succeed. Secondly, we review promising policy and civil society interventions targeted at addressing these barriers, nearly all of which have already been piloted at the local and state levels or through modest public funding. These interventions are most effective, we find, when they are linked up through robustly governed networks to provide “wraparound” coverage for new entry sustainable farmers. Such networks can help patch together complementary sources of support (e.g. federal, state, local, NGO, cooperative) and synergistically address multiple barriers at once. Finally, we propose additional interventions that are more aspirational today, but that could offer important pathways to support new sustainable farmers in the longer term.

In the face of rapidly advancing climate change, biodiversity loss, and water scarcity, it is clear that global agriculture must swiftly and decisively shift toward sustainability. Fortunately, farmers and researchers have developed a thoroughly studied pathway to this transition: agroecological farming systems that mimic natural ecosystems, creating tightly coupled cycles of energy, water, and nutrients. A critical and underappreciated feature of agroecological systems is that they replace fossil fuel-and chemical-intensive management with knowledge-intensive management. Hence, the greatest sustainability challenge for agriculture may well be that of replacing non-renewable resources with ecologically-skilled people, and doing so in ways that create and support desirable rural livelihoods. Yet over the past century, US agriculture has been trending in the opposite direction, rapidly replacing knowledgeable people with non-renewable resources and eroding rural economies in the process. Below, we suggest how US policy could pivot to enable and support the ecologically skilled workforce needed to achieve food security in the face of climate change.

Opposition within the organic agriculture community to a state regulatory initiative intended to close a loophole on the prohibition of stoop labor in California agriculture illuminates critical tensions around the "labor question" underpinning California's rapidly expanding organic sector. Through an exploration of the contradictions between the political economic realities of organic agriculture, the lived realities of farm workers, and the ideological framework of "agricultural exceptionalism" espoused in the organic community, this article challenges widely held assumptions that organic agriculture embodies a more socially sustainable form of production. We conclude that these tensions must be confronted if any progress is to be made toward the incorporation of social justice into definitions of agro-food system sustainability.