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The Immigrant-Food Nexus: Borders, Labor, And Identity In North America, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Sea Sloat

Food Studies - All Scholarship

This chapter addresses why immigrant farmers are so unlikely to participate in USDA direct financial assistance programs, despite immigrant farmers’ growth as a new group of farmers and particularly as a group that the USDA declares they want to support. We contend that the standardization of practices and bureaucracy inherent in receiving USDA assistance stands in stark opposition to the agrarian norms and practices of immigrant farmers and hinders their participation in USDA opportunities. The requirements of standardization help to maintain a racialized class boundary in US agriculture today, playing a large role in preventing immigrant farmers from moving up …