Source: UNIV OF WISCONSIN submitted to NRP
SOCIOLOGY RESEARCH
Sponsoring Institution
State Agricultural Experiment Station
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
STATE
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
0210137
Grant No.
(N/A)
Cumulative Award Amt.
(N/A)
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Oct 1, 2006
Project End Date
Sep 30, 2011
Grant Year
(N/A)
Program Code
[(N/A)]- (N/A)
Recipient Organization
UNIV OF WISCONSIN
21 N PARK ST STE 6401
MADISON,WI 53715-1218
Performing Department
Community and Environmental Sociology
Non Technical Summary
Wisconsin farmers are increasingly relying on immigrant employees, but there are few data available on this population, their experiences, their impacts, or their needs. This research project is designed to augment the limited existing data on the changes in Wisconsin's farm labor force, explain the reasons for these shifts in hiring practices, and to present and compare various perceptions about the social and economic consequences of the associated labor force changes.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
100%
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
80360503080100%
Knowledge Area
803 - Sociological and Technological Change Affecting Individuals, Families, and Communities;

Subject Of Investigation
6050 - Communities, areas, and regions;

Field Of Science
3080 - Sociology;
Goals / Objectives
Data suggest that Wisconsin farmers increasingly augment family labor with hired employees, and anecdotal evidence suggests that Wisconsin farmers increasingly rely upon immigrant workers to serve these labor needs. However, preliminary exploratory research suggests that existing data underrepresent the number of hired employees and fail to adequately illustrate the composition of Wisconsin's hired farm labor force. These data gaps thwart decisionmakers' abilities to effectively serve the needs of farmers, farmworkers, and their host communities. This research project is designed to augment the limited existing data on the changes in Wisconsin's farm labor force; explain the reasons for these shifts in hiring practices; to present farmers', immigrant workers', community members', local officials', and others' perceptions about the social and economic consequences of the associated labor force changes; and to compare farmers' perceptions about immigrant labor with those of the general public (as presented in public opinion polls and media analysis) and with documented impacts of similar increases in immigrant labor in other rural US communities. I aim to use this research to inform current debates about the economic competitiveness of Wisconsin agriculture, the debates about the state and national agricultural labor shortage crises, and the broader debates about immigration reform.
Project Methods
The research consists of a series of small focus groups and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with farmers across the state of Wisconsin; ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews with immigrant farmworkers; and a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews with farmer representatives, farm labor advocates, immigrant advocates, education system representatives, elected officials, law enforcement representatives, and health clinic representatives.

Progress 10/01/06 to 09/30/11

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I continued my sociological research on agricultural pesticide drift conflicts in California, and I also continued my research on changes in the immigrant farm labor force in the Wisconsin dairy industry and immigration politics throughout the United States. My target audiences are policymakers, social service providers, university extension agents, researchers, industry representatives, environmental advocates, and students. I reach these various actors through applied and academic publications, as well as through oral presentations and lectures, and my service commitments. PARTICIPANTS: PI is Jill Harrison Pritikin, Assistant Professor of Community & Environmental Sociology, UW-Madison. I collaborated with the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies at UW-Madison and with UW-Madison graduate student (RA) Sarah Lloyd. TARGET AUDIENCES: Policymakers, social service providers, university extension agents, researchers, industry representatives, environmental advocates, students, and others. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
My research on immigrant farm workers in Wisconsin has raised the issue in the state policy arena and provided policymakers and other decisionmakers with hard data that help to justify immigration reform for agricultural workers and their family members. My pesticide drift research in the past year has helped to clarify the different meanings of justice in environmental politics.

Publications

  • No publications reported this period


Progress 01/01/09 to 12/31/09

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I continued my sociological research on agricultural pesticide drift conflicts in California, and I also continued my research on changes in the immigrant farm labor force in the Wisconsin dairy industry and immigration politics throughout the United States. My target audiences are policymakers, social service providers, university extension agents, researchers, industry representatives, environmental advocates, and students. I reach these various actors through applied and academic publications, as well as through oral presentations and lectures, and my service commitments. PARTICIPANTS: PARTICIPANTS: PI = Jill Harrison Pritikin, Assistant Professor of Community & Environmental Sociology, UW-Madison. I collaborated with the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies at UW-Madison and with UW-Madison graduate students (RAs) Trish O'Kane and Sarah Lloyd. TARGET AUDIENCES: Policymakers, social service providers, university extension agents, researchers, industry representatives, environmental advocates, students, and others. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
My research on immigrant farm workers in Wisconsin has raised the issue in the state policy arena and provided policymakers and other decisionmakers with hard data that help to justify immigration reform for agricultural workers and their family members. My pesticide drift research in the past year has helped a major pesticide activist group revise their lay science program to better attend to their community participants' needs.

Publications

  • Harrison, Jill, Sarah Lloyd, Trish OKane, and Alan Turnquist. 2009. "Immigrant Labor Holds 40 Percent Market Share." Hoard's Dairyman. December: 749-50.
  • Harrison, Jill, Sarah Lloyd, and Trish O'Kane. 2009. "Overview of Immigrant Workers on Wisconsin Dairy Farms." Changing Hands: Hired Labor on Wisconsin Dairy Farms Briefing No. 1. UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.
  • Harrison, Jill, Sarah Lloyd, and Trish O'Kane. 2009. "A Look into the Lives of Wisconsin's Immigrant Dairy Workers." Changing Hands: Hired Labor on Wisconsin Dairy Farms Briefing No. 2. UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.
  • Harrison, Jill, Sarah Lloyd, and Trish O'Kane. 2009. "Dairy Workers in Wisconsin: Tasks, Shifts, Wages, and Benefits." Changing Hands: Hired Labor on Wisconsin Dairy Farms Briefing No. 3. UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.
  • Harrison, Jill, Sarah Lloyd, and Trish O'Kane. 2009. "Immigrant Dairy Workers in Rural Wisconsin Communities." Changing Hands: Hired Labor on Wisconsin Dairy Farms Briefing No. 4. UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.
  • Harrison, Jill, Sarah Lloyd, and Trish O'Kane. 2009. "Legal Issues Facing Immigrant Dairy Workers in Wisconsin." Changing Hands: Hired Labor on Wisconsin Dairy Farms Briefing No. 5. UW-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.


Progress 01/01/08 to 12/31/08

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I continued my sociological research on agricultural pesticide drift conflicts in California, and I also continued my research on changes in the immigrant farm labor force in the Wisconsin dairy industry and immigration politics throughout the United States. PARTICIPANTS: PI = Jill Harrison Pritikin, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, UW-Madison. I collaborated with the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies at UW- Madison, with research associate Brent Valentine, and with UW-Madison graduate students (RAs) Julia McReynolds, Trish O'Kane, and Sarah Lloyd. TARGET AUDIENCES: Policymakers, social service providers, university extension agents, researchers, industry representatives, environmental advocates, and others. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period.

Impacts
My Wisconsin dairy farmworker findings are the first-ever systematic characterization of the dairy farm hired labor force; how its demographic composition has changed over time; how those demographic characteristics relate to wages, benefits, hours, shifts, tasks, and other aspects of the organization of farm work; and the social justice implications of those findings. Also, the research prompted the Wisconsin Migrant Coalition, a statewide immigrant farm worker advocacy group, to invite me to join their advisory board, and I started that position in 2008. Also, several members of the Governor's Council on Migrant Labor plan to use my findings in January 2009 to lobby the Council to include dairy employees in their advocacy work and legal protections (excluded until now because they are year-round, not seasonal, employees). My California pesticide drift findings provide practical recommendations for scientist-lay collaborations in scientific research in terms of how those collaborations can be more productive and satisfying for all participants. I provided input of this sort to the lay science participants I interviewed, more lengthy input to the scientists I interviewed, and produced a peer-reviewed journal article for publication (still in review).

Publications

  • Harrison, Jill, and Steven Wolf. 2008. "Introduction to the special issue: Charting fault lines in US agrifood systems: What can we contribute" Agriculture and Human Values 25(2): 147-149.
  • Harrison, Jill. 2008. "Lessons learned from pesticide drift: A call to bring production agriculture, farm labor, and social justice back into agrifood research and activism." Agriculture and Human Values 25(2): 163-167.
  • Harrison, Jill, Julia McReynolds, Trish O'Kane, and Brent Valentine. 2008. "Hired Labor in Wisconsin Agriculture: Trends and Implications." Status of Wisconsin Agriculture. Madison: University of Wisconsin.
  • Harrison, Jill. 2008. "Abandoned bodies and spaces of sacrifice: Pesticide drift activism and the contestation of neoliberal environmental politics in California." Geoforum 39: 1197-1214.
  • Harrison, Jill. 2008. "Confronting Invisibility: Reconstructing Scale in California's Pesticide Drift Conflict," in Michael Goodman and Max Boykoff, eds., Contentious Geographies: Environment, Meaning and Scale. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
  • Harrison, Jill. 2008. "Drift Catcher Project Assessment." Independent assessment of lay air monitoring project for Pesticide Action Network.


Progress 01/01/07 to 12/31/07

Outputs
OUTPUTS: I continued my sociological research on agricultural pesticide drift conflicts in California, and I also continued my research on changes in the immigrant farm labor force in the Wisconsin dairy industry. PARTICIPANTS: Jill Harrison, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, UW-Madison. I collaborated with the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies at UW-Madison. TARGET AUDIENCES: Policymakers, regulatory officials, social service providers, educators, students, immigrant advocates, and environmental advocates. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: n/a

Impacts
Continuing research in the California project helped me to secure a UW Graduate School research grant (for July 2008). Preliminary research in the Wisconsin project helped us to secure funding in the form of a two-year Hatch grant and additional survey funds from the Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.

Publications

  • Harrison, Jill, and Steven Wolf. 2008 forthcoming. "Introduction to the special issue: Charting fault lines in US agrifood systems: What can we contribute?" Agriculture and Human Values 25(2).
  • Harrison, Jill. 2008 forthcoming. "Lessons learned from pesticide drift: A call to bring production agriculture, farm labor, and social justice back into agrifood research and activism." Agriculture and Human Values 25(2).
  • Harrison, Jill. 2007 in press. "Abandoned bodies and spaces of sacrifice: Pesticide drift activism and the contestation of neoliberal environmental politics in California." Geoforum.
  • Harrison, Jill, Julia McReynolds, Trish O'Kane, and Brent Valentine. 2008 forthcoming. "Hired Labor in Wisconsin Agriculture: Trends and Implications." Status of Wisconsin Agriculture. Madison: University of Wisconsin.
  • Harrison, Jill. 2007. "Immigrant Labor on Wisconsin Dairy Farms." Program on Agricultural Technology Studies Fact Sheet 24. October.