Labor and the Locavore

Labor and the Locavore is a timely and important antidote to much of today's popular food writing on eating local. Forthright and rigorous in its depiction of labor conditions on small farms in New York's Hudson Valley-the hub of the New York City local food system-Margaret Gray shows that labor abuses are not unique to industrial scale agriculture-or to California. -Julie Guthman, author of Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism Small may be beautiful; when local it may be even better. But as Margaret Gray's beautifully written ethnography shows, the romance with the small and the local focuses on the conditions under which produce is grown while ignoring the conditions endured by the immigrant workers planting, picking, and tending the locally grown food that socially conscious consumers so desire. Focusing on that iconic symbol-the small, family-owned farm-this carefully researched, extensively documented book sheds new light on the ways in which immigration has transformed all corners of American life and in so doing has confronted farmers, consumers, and workers alike with difficult yet ultimately resolvable dilemmas. -Roger Waldinger, author of How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor