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This paper aims to present two potential instruments that will address the lack of knowledge in regard to the context of students' reality from teaching professionals in a specific school, these being: a local historiography (record of "yesterday"), based on oral history; and a reality inventory (record of "today"), elaborated from the assumptions of action research. Moreover, the objective is to argue the potential they have so as to avoid, on the part of school professionals, the mistake of not knowing the reality of the context of students. To achieve this, we present a brief description of the experiences we have had with these instruments in an area of ??agrarian reform with the Landless Workers Movement (MST), in southern Brazil. The study concludes with certain characteristics that are involved in the process of creating these instruments in order to achieve their potential, that is the support of local leaders, collaboration with the community, and the connection with the research.

Purpose: The sustainability of the global food system hinges on its environmental resiliency and safety, including the health and well-being of its labor force. Single disciplinary courses in liberal arts or science often fail to highlight the overlap between environmental and social vulnerabilities that lead to food insecurity and diminish the sustainability of food systems. This paper aims to present the design and delivery of a successfully co-taught, interdisciplinary module on agricultural labor and sustainable food systems as a case study. Design/methodology/approach: The authors designed a co-taught module in which they joined each other's respective history and science class sessions at the undergraduate business college where they teach. Innovating the cross-disciplinary content of food security, immigration status, labor exploitation and pesticide exposure, they approached sustainability from the disciplinary perspectives of labor history and environmental science to show how these elements had both unique and overlapping impacts across food systems levels. Comparisons between pre- and post-module survey responses, alongside assessments of a co-authored exam question, measured the effectiveness of this module is changing students' perspectives as food consumers and as citizens. Findings This module altered students' understanding and perspectives around issues of food systems sustainability. Assessments indicated that students increased their awareness of agricultural workers at the front end of the food system, during production; students also gained awareness beyond consumption as they came to see the connections between workforce invisibility and ecosystem degradation. Originality/value: These insights are valuable to educators at all institutional levels who seek to collaborate on sustainability initiatives and teaching, both in the singular, robust modules and in building modules that will lead to the development of entire courses focused on sustainability. The module described here builds on previous demonstrations of the value, significance and effectiveness of cross-disciplinary collaborations; it pioneers the use of the food system as the link between social and environmental sustainability education.

With its origin in Greek where "diaspora" as a noun means "a dispersion" or as a verb means to "scatter about", the term is used in this paper to refer to the dispersion or scattering of Africans from their original African homeland and now live in countries other than their own. Indeed some Africans have dispersed from their own countries to other countries in Africa. For the purposes of this paper our analysis focuses on Africans who live outside Africa. This paper explores the African diaspora phenomenon starting from the commercial extraction of Africans as resources to serve as inputs into plantain development in North America and manual labourers in Europe, South America and the Caribbean, to the colonial exploitation of African peoples during the "Scramble for Africa", to political exiles and economic refugees that ensued, following political independence and instabilities, and to expert skilled migrations of Africans abroad, including digital diaspora. Grounded in the educational philosophy of human and social capital theory, the paper presents a cost benefit analysis of the gains and losses that Africans and African countries have experienced as a result of the African diaspora phenomenon. The analysis leads to the philosophical conclusion that whereas the initial dispersion of Africans to overseas countries represented a significant cost to the human and social capital of Africa, African diaspora in the 21st century have potential to improve the human and social capital not only for themselves and their former homeland, but also in the host countries.

Purpose: The paper aims at better understanding the micro-foundations of current institutional changes in agricultural knowledge and innovation systems (AKIS). Design: A survey of 98 farmers and interviews with 37 advice providers in south-western France were conducted to analyse the ways in which farmers combine different sources of advice (microAKIS). The farmers' practices were observed for general farm management and for 3 types of innovation (new crop diversification, digital decision support tools, and labour outsourcing). Findings: The results highlight poorly-known characteristics of microAKIS regarding the variety of sources of advice used by farmers, and the limited number of reliable resources on which farmers can draw at key stages of the innovation process. They provide evidence of bottom-up mechanisms of institutional changes such as the routinization of the use of certain service providers that are often overlooked in AKIS analyses (e.g. upstream industries). Practical implications: These results can contribute to reducing the misalignments of stakeholders' representations of AKIS and microAKIS, and therefore facilitate public debates and improve the efficiency of interventions in this area. Theoretical implications: Studies of institutional changes resulting from the evolution of microAKIS are expected to complement analyses of increased pluralism of advice providers. Originality: Linking the observation of microAKIS and the analysis of incremental institutional changes in AKIS allows the identification of transformations of the AKIS rationale that would otherwise remain partially invisible.

This paper uses data from research projects that deliberately set out to tell positive stories about educators who were working with the children and families of migratory agricultural workers in the US. The aim underpinning these projects was to move beyond the deficit discourses and stories of blame that so often circulate, particularly in relation to social groups that are marginalised, and to present stories that embody positive and productive ways of thinking and working. Using Maxwell's (2012) process of connecting, the authors used the transcripts of semistructured interviews to construct narratives about three of the educators who were interviewed. These examples from rural education research highlighted the actions of educators to build and promote children's and families' relationships with the place where they were residing temporarily. The notion of querencia provided a helpful way of conceptualising the relationship between place and belonging, to assist the development of insider understandings. The narrative approach offers a way of opening such discussions in education more broadly and to consider the role of teachers in ensuring that negatively framed stories, such as deficit discourses, are not in play.

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse the pattern of structural transformation and productivity growth of 15 major Indian states at a ten-sector level of disaggregation from 1983 to 2017. Design/methodology/approach: The analysis has been carried over in a ten-sector disaggregated level through construction of the labour and output data from various micro data sets. Findings: The majority of Indian states have bypassed the stage of industrialization, wherein labour previously engaged in agriculture has transitioned directly into the modern services sector while skipping the manufacturing. There are no sign of convergence of sectoral productivities and the heterogeneity among Indian states persists throughout the time period. The growth performance of states are not positively associated with the movement of labour across sectors as measured by the structural transformation index (STI). This goes against the narrative that structural transformation help reduce the misallocation of factors. Despite an increase in educational attainment of workers across all sectors, more than one-third of agricultural workers still remain either illiterate or lack formal schooling. Among sectors, construction (C) and trade, hotels and restaurants (THR) have absorbed the majority of workers who have left agricultural jobs. Finance, insurance, real estate and business services (FIRB), electricity, gas and water supply (EGWS) and mining and quarrying (MQ) are the three sectors that have seen significant gains in labour productivity during the study period. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first attempt to analyse structural change and productivity growth in the Indian economy using Indian states as critical geographical marker. The results are new and add value to the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the pesticide safety behaviours and related factors among cabbage farmers in Kalaw Township, Myanmar. Background: Unsafe chemical pesticide practices affect farmers' health and the environment. Understanding pesticide safety behaviours is necessary for healthcare providers to protect agriculture workers against unwanted adverse health effects. Methods: The cross‐sectional study was conducted among 195 cabbage farmers from March to May 2019. Safety behaviours and factors applied in the PRECEDE–PROCEDE model as a framework were assessed using questionnaires. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was applied to identify any associations. Results: Altogether, 72.1% of the farmers had a low level of safety behaviours. Goggles and masks were rarely used before and during pesticide applications. All of the farmers experienced adverse health effects after using pesticides. The attitudes toward pesticide poisoning; support from family, co‐workers and healthcare providers; and the availability of personal protective equipment were significantly associated with safety behaviours. Conclusion: Our data provide novel empirical evidence for an opportunity to design effective nursing interventions to promote pesticide safety behaviours among Myanmar agricultural workers. Nurses should pay more attention to promoting comprehensive interventions to reduce both exposure and health effects among agricultural workers through the involvement of supported stakeholders. Summary statement: What is already known about this topic? Farmers and agricultural workers have extensively used pesticides in all steps of cultivation and face a greater risk of pesticide exposure, which could result in adverse health effects.Owing to the lack of research on community health promotion conducted in Myanmar, the burden of the consequences and adverse effects of pesticides remains a significant health issue. What this paper adds? Findings reveal a clear framework for better understanding and assessing pesticide safety behaviours among agricultural workers and farmers in Myanmar.Findings contribute new knowledge for nursing community health promotion by enhancing understanding of multilevel factors, including international and external factors, associated with safety behaviours among agricultural workers and farmers. The implications of this paper: Nurses and other healthcare professionals should be aware of the importance of preventing adverse health effects among agricultural workers in the community and interventions aimed at promoting safety behaviours should be focused not only on individuals but also on the involvement of social supports—particularly family and co‐workers.Nursing policymakers should consider strengthening the nursing role in the recognition of pesticide risk exposure and health outcomes, management of pesticide poisoning and exposure and prevention of pesticide‐related health conditions both in nursing education and nursing practice.Local authorities and policymakers should focus their attention on health promotion and health services to promote safety behaviours when using pesticides, and treatment and extension services should be provided for cases of suspected pesticide poisoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the behavioral research in a broadening variety of fields, focusing on behavioral system dynamics, behavioral sciences and behavioral economics combined with other social sciences. Topics include behavioral operations management, behavioral accounting and smallholder farming.

Purpose: Small holder farmers are highly vulnerable to changes in climate, as they live on a marginal income, and the crops they depend upon are highly affected by climate. This paper seeks to investigate the impact of climate change on farmers' productivity and their adaptive responses to these impacts. Methodology: One hundred and fifteen small-scale farmers were interviewed throughout Mauritius. A questionnaire was devised for this study and included both close-ended and open-ended questions. Findings: It was found that farmers have observed a net decrease in their crop yield over the past several years, mainly owing to changes in the quantum and pattern in precipitation, and resurgence of pests and diseases. Their only recourse to adapt to these was to increase the amount of pesticides and fertilizers in order to maintain their level of production. This survey finding was validated by a model. Practical implications: This study will enable extension officers to review the advice they normally give to farmers with a view to ensure that farmers respond to the climatic changes by adopting a more sustainable approach of using environmentally friendly measures such as application of organic amendments, non-chemical pest control, reduced fertilizers and pesticides, soil and water management. Theoretical implications: Promoting a shift toward an ecological way of farming will result in less reliance on chemicals and lowered GHG emissions. Originality/Value: The study depicted the weaknesses of the extension services to make farmers shift from their conventional practice toward a sustainable agriculture.

During the first half of the twentieth century, ethnic Mexican beet workers in Colorado endured a daunting array of challenges that included dismal housing, meager wages, and a family labor system that forced children as well as adults to labor relentless hours in the sugar-beet fields. In response to these conditions, Catholic reformer Thomas Mahony promoted a vision of the American economy in which marginalized populations like the beet laborers would take their rightful place as healthy consumers and effective family providers. His vision was shaped by the Catholic social justice movement of the Progressive Era, as well as by a career in agricultural consumerism. From 1910 to 1913, for example, he served as director of exhibits for the Chicago Land Show, a position that immersed him in a world that marketed farm lands as idealized consumer commodities while rendering invisible the struggles of propertyless farm workers. When Mahony began his reform career a decade later, he strove to do exactly the opposite: make beet field workers as visible as possible in his blueprint for a vigorous consumerist democracy. At the same time, however, Mahony's intense fears of radicalism overshadowed his reform impulses, reflecting profound tensions within the Catholic reform ethos that shaped him: a yearning for spiritual and social regeneration in constant battle with a dread of social upheaval. Mahony's story therefore helps to illuminate the considerable potential of twentieth-century religious reform, even as his obsessive fears highlight the perils of antiradicalism in the U.S. West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare many of societies' existing social and economic inequalities, one of which is illustrated in the challenges facing food and farm workers across the food chain. Despite this upsurge in public recognition, the circumstances facing food and farm workers remain unchanged, and this lack of action is reflected within the work of food systems-focused civil society organizations (CSO) in Canada. Several authors have noted the lack of recognition of labor issues within food systems work. This paper further explores the nature of this disengagement, particularly in food systems governance work, and identifies barriers to more meaningful engagement and possible avenues to overcome these challenges. Findings draw from a set of 57 interviews conducted from 2020 to 2023 with a range of food system CSO representatives across Canada, examining their understanding of, and engagement in, food systems governance work and their involvement in labor issues (or lack thereof). The paper concludes that though there exists widespread awareness of the challenges facing food and farm workers, and a desire to engage in a more sustained fashion, many food system CSOs have not yet found the tools or pathways to do so on an organizational level. Several discursive openings are identified that offer an opportunity to leverage the heightened awareness of food and farm workers during the pandemic into concrete collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant labour has been particularly significant in the British rural agribusiness sector, where employers often struggle to source labour regardless of economic conditions. While most research on East-Central European migration has focused on the experiences of members of the migrant community, this paper is one of a small number of studies that has gathered evidence from employers and labour recruiters. The paper draws on in-depth interviews undertaken in four case study areas. The analysis focuses on the practices of employers and recruiters that have shaped how migrant labour is sourced and used in the UK labour market, and how labour migration channels have evolved since 2004. The two main conceptual contributions of this paper are a new typology of recruitment/employment practices and a schema illustrating the changing spatial impacts of migration channels in areas of destination. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

This paper investigates some of the economic outcomes of education in Pakistan with a view to understanding if education can act as a vehicle for labour market success. Data from a purpose-designed survey of more than 1000 households in Pakistan are utilised. Earnings functions are estimated for agricultural workers, the self-employed and wage earners to estimate the returns to the "quantity" and the "quality" of schooling in different occupations, by gender. The paper also estimates the returns to knowing "English" in the Pakistani labour market separately for men and women. (Contains 6 tables, 5 figures and 13 notes.)

Since the 2004 EU enlargement established one European common labour market, a large number of Eastern Europeans have taken up seasonal employment as hired farm workers in Norwegian agriculture. Much attention in the public has been given to the potential for "social dumping" of these migrating workers, as they are considered prone to exploitation by farmers looking for cheap and docile labour, and subject to low-wages and poor labour conditions. In response to these threats, Norway implemented labour regulations ("transitional rules") that established minimum standards for wage levels and labour conditions, combined with registration and supervision of the incoming labour force. Nevertheless, reports from the field indicate that many of the westward migrating labour force experience work conditions that are far poorer than prescribed by the labour regulations, as these are not implemented at the farm level. In this paper, we discuss the social processes that result in this mismatch between state regulations (e.g. transition rules) and the actual experiences of migrant workers building on dual labour market theory. Analysing qualitative in-depth interviews with 54 farm migrants, we argue that there are two sets of factors underlying the poorer working conditions observed on the farms: Firstly, the structural disempowerment of migrant workers, which gives them weak negotiating positions vis-a-vis their employers (farmers); and secondly, the migrant workers' frame of reference for wage levels, in which poor payment levels by Norwegian standards are found acceptable or even good when judged by Eastern European wage levels. While a number of works have described the exploitation of farm migrant labour, we demonstrate in this paper how national immigration and agricultural histories, structures and present policies configure the labour-capital relations at farm level in the Norwegian case.

Conducting evaluations that are both valid and ethical is imperative for the support and sustainability of programs that address underserved and vulnerable populations. A key component is to have evaluators who are knowledgeable about relevant cultural issues and sensitive to population needs. Hispanics in rural settings are vulnerable for many reasons but especially because of language issues, differences in cultural beliefs and socioeconomic barriers. Additional factors, such as cultural proclivity to be deferential to authority figures and the possibility of having an undocumented alien status also are important issues for Hispanics living and working in rural communities. Because migrant farm workers comprise a large part of Hispanics living in rural areas, attention to the sensitive issues surrounding this population is paramount during program evaluations. This paper highlights ethical issues pertinent to program evaluations involving Hispanics residing in rural settings.

This paper investigates stories that are told in a North Queensland rural community about the arrival of itinerant farm workers for the winter harvesting season. Permanent residents often represent this annual event as an invasion of the community by undesirable people who break the law, exacerbate racial tensions and take jobs from locals. Such stories are also heard in the community's schools where significant numbers of itinerant children enrol during the harvesting season. In the face of sometimes hostile reception from permanent residents of the community, many itinerant families work hard to "fit in", trying to ensure positive experiences for their children. This paper explores some of the stories that circulate and examines the way that negative perceptions of itinerant families tend to restrict the community's capacity to recognise the benefits that families could contribute to community life. (Contains 3 endnotes.)

The fresh vegetables commodity chain linking Kenyan producers with United Kingdom (UK) consumers employs significant numbers of workers in production and processing. This chain is dominated by UK retailers that determine the production imperatives of Kenyan firms upstream in the chain and, indirectly the employment strategies they adopt. This paper explores how competitive pressures are transmitted through the supply chain, and how exporters absorb these risks by placing greater emphasis on organizational flexibility and the elasticity of labor in horticultural production. The paper argues that while the industry provides substantial employment opportunities in Kenya, the commodity chain is dependent upon the "gendered" and insecure forms of employment it creates.

Between 2010-20, specialty cafés emerged in Mexico that led to a significant change to café work culture. Using protagonists' oral accounts, this article examines the rise of specialty café culture in two Mexican cities (Puebla City and Oaxaca City) and how and why specialty coffeeshop owners and baristas participated in this rise. The article argues that specialty café owners and baristas were crucial actors in the emergence of a specialty café culture in Mexico. Subsequently, specialty cafés offered new working conditions for baristas as well as owners. These conditions created jobs of passion, led to job-satisfaction for these urban workers, and facilitated positive service-work experiences. Overall, this paper exposes how specialty cafés grew, why people decided to participate in this growth and how they interpreted their participation in this experience. Moreover, this paper adds to the history and study of coffee by approaching café culture in a coffee-producing country and by prioritising the focus on café workers instead of agricultural labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]