Farm Workers

Crop protection has a significant role in overall production. Chemicals and pesticides are being used at every stage of cultivation viz. land preparation, seed treatment, controlling diseases and pests, removal of weeds and at the time of storing grains. They are highlighted as being of special concern because of their relatively high intrinsic toxicity and direct application to food crops. Exposure to pesticides and other agrochemicals at farm constitutes one of the principal occupational risks posing many acute and chronic health problems. Nearly 10,000 deaths occur annually worldwide, due to the use of chemical pesticide, with about three-fourths of these occurring in developing countries.Although the magnitude of health damage caused by agrochemical exposure varies according to the type of crop cultivated, the type of agrochemical used, the mode of application or exposure, the individual susceptibility and the climatic conditions. Chemicals can enter the body through many routes but the most common ways are through skin and by inhaling. Gases used as pesticides or produced by a reaction when pesticides are applied-including hydrogen sulphide, phosgene and chlorine-affect directly, through irritation, the walls of the respiratory tract, bringing asthmatic reactions among people suffering from bronchial hyperactivity. The health status of population working in agriculture needs to be improved and thus require attention. There is lack of data on how many agricultural workers are adversely affected during crop protection activities and there are no effective ways to find the exact rates of accidents and diseases confronted by them as a result of chemicals used. Also current ergonomic researches and its application in developing countries are mainly focusing on the industrial sector. There is limited information on the extent to which ergonomics may alleviate the health problems. Thus, there is an urgent need to educate them in the crop protection skills and safe methods of work through special training programmes and interventions. Therefore, the present research was undertaken with the objective of assessing occupational health hazards and musculoskeletal problems confronted by the agricultural workers, body part discomfort and overall body discomfort perceived by them in crop protection activity. Methodology A sample of 120 agricultural workers engaged in cultivation since 8-10 years were selected randomly. The ratio of men and women was equal and thus a total of 60 male and 60 female respondents participated in the present study. A survey was conducted to find the occupational health hazards among agricultural workers during crop protection work i.e. while handling chemicals and making use of pesticides. The associated causative factors of hazards and the safety practices adopted by the agricultural workers in preventing the health hazards were also obtained to disclose the level of knowledge of the respondents regarding work hazards in agriculture and the possible mode of preventing them. To find out the prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal problems and body discomfort of the agricultural workers while performing crop protection activities Psycho-physical technique developed by Corlett and Bishop (1976) on a 5-point continuum was used. The total BPDS were the sum of all the scores assigned by the subject to individual body parts. For subjective measure of the overall discomfort PAGE 4

While concerns and debates about an increased presence of non-citizen guest workers in agriculture in Canada have only more recently begun to enter the public arena, this
dissertation probes how migrant agricultural workers have occupied a longer and more complex place in Canadian history than most Canadians may approximate. It explores
the historical precedents of seasonal farm labour in Canada through the lens of the interior or the personal on the one hand, through an oral history approach, and the
external or the structural on the other, in dialogue with existing scholarship and through a critical assessment of the archive. Specifically, it considers the evolution of seasonal farm work in Manitoba and British Columbia, and traces the eventual rise of an “offshore” labour scheme as a dominant model for agriculture at a national scale. Taking 1974 as a point of departure for the study of circular farm labour migration between Mexico and Canada, the study revisits questions surrounding Canadian views of what constitutes the ideal or injurious migrant worker, to ask critical questions about how managed farm labour migration schemes evolved in Canadian history. In addition, the dissertation explores how Mexican farm workers’ migration to Canada since 1974 formed a part of a wider and extended world of Mexican migration, and seeks to record and celebrate Mexican contributions to modern Canadian agriculture in historical contexts involving diverse actors. In exploring the contexts that have driven Mexican out-migration and transnational integration, it bridges oral accounts with a broader history that sets Mexican northward migration in hemispheric context. It reads agricultural migration upon various planes, including corporeality, experience, identity, masculinity, legality, “contra-modernity,” and the management of mobilities.

This is the only quantitative survey of evictions from farms in South Africa post apartheid. It identifies the number of evictions in the first ten years after democracy and the last ten years of apartheid and finds a remarkable continuity and continued high numbers of evictions. More black South African where evicted from farms than benefitted from land reform in the first ten years of liberation.

Twenty years after the end of apartheid farm dwellers remain some of the most vulnerable people in South Africa, with many still facing extreme tenure insecurity and lacking access to adequate housing and basic services. The approximately three million black South Africans (6% of the population) who live on privately owned farms in formerly white commercial farming areas are among the poorest South Africans, whose vulnerability is exacerbated by their “socio-economic marginality and geographical isolation”. These inequalities have persisted despite the introduction of a number of fundamental rights in the South African Constitution which provide essential protections to farm dwellers, including the promotion of tenure security to previously disadvantaged persons, the right of access to adequate housing and the right of access to adequate water, food and health care. In fact, since 1994 a variety of laws and policies have been put in place to give effect to the constitutional imperative for land reform, and to regulate and improve the rights and living conditions of farm dwellers. However, in spite of these new laws and policies many farm dwellers continue to live in fear that they may lose their homes or rights to land. The report provides a comprehensive analysis of the legislation, policies, case law and financial mechanisms associated with farm dwellers’ tenure security, access to adequate housing and basic services, and considers why the legal and policy framework has not been able to adequately protect the rights of farm dwellers. It was developed to assist non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and public interest law practitioners in navigating the highly complex legal and policy framework regulating farm dwellers’ rights to tenure security and access to adequate housing and basic services, as well as understanding the various roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders. The report was written for the Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA) and was produced with funding received from the European Union.

Voluntary Sustainability Standards-Setting Organizations (VSSSOs) create standards to improve the social and/or envi- ronmental impacts of globalized production networks. VSSSOs are often assumed to have multi-stakeholder governance structures that include the producers of certified products (e.g., farmers, artisans, and workers). This article argues that including producers in gover- nance is desirable. However, analysis of 33 VSSSOs’ constitutions shows two-thirds do not even imply intention to include producers. At most, 25% ensure producers have votes/seats and 18% give producers veto power. The discussion examines what is lost when VSSSOs do not bring traditionally marginalized voices to global economic governance.

SUMMARY Access to water is a constitutionally-protected right in South Africa and an energetic flow of laws, policies and programmes have been initiated to address historical inequalities in the supply of water since the dawn of democracy. Yet despite this, millions of people living in South Africa still have inadequate access to water. Access to water is a particular challenge for people living on farms. By providing an analysis of the case of Mshengu & Others v uMsunduzi Local Municipality & Others, decided by the High Court of South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal Division, Pietermaritzburg, this article seeks to make two key contributions. First, it highlights the challenges experienced by farm dwellers in realising their right to water and locates these challenges within a legal framework which places obligations on both municipalities and private land owners to provide access to water on farms. In particular, the mechanism of water services intermediaries envisaged in the Water Services...

Social psychologists typically conceptualize intergroup processes in terms of unequal pairs of social categories, such as an advantaged majority (e.g., 'Whites') and a disadvantaged minority (e.g., 'Blacks'). We argue that this two-group paradigm may obscure the workings of intergroup power by overlooking: (1) the unique dynamics of intergroup relations involving three or more groups, and (2) the way some two-group relationships function as strategic alliances that derive meaning from their location within a wider relational context. We develop this argument through a field study conducted in a grape-farming town in South Africa in 2009, focusing on an episode of xenophobic violence in which a Zimbabwean farm worker community was forcibly evicted from their homes by their South African neighbours. Discursive analysis of interview accounts of the nature and origins of this violence shows how an ostensibly binary 'xenophobic' conflict between foreign and South ...

Social psychologists typically conceptualize intergroup processes in terms of unequal pairs of social categories, such as an advantaged majority (e.g., 'Whites') and a disadvantaged minority (e.g., 'Blacks'). We argue that this two-group paradigm may obscure the workings of intergroup power by overlooking: (1) the unique dynamics of intergroup relations involving three or more groups, and (2) the way some two-group relationships function as strategic alliances that derive meaning from their location within a wider relational context. We develop this argument through a field study conducted in a grape-farming town in South Africa in 2009, focusing on an episode of xenophobic violence in which a Zimbabwean farm worker community was forcibly evicted from their homes by their South African neighbours. Discursive analysis of interview accounts of the nature and origins of this violence shows how an ostensibly binary 'xenophobic' conflict between foreign and South ...