It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
UK Farmers warn of first year without harvest since Second World War
Emma Gatten 9 April 2024· Record rainfall has meant that a lot of farmland is still under water, as on this farm near Bangor-on-Dee, Wales - Andrew McCoy /Getty Images
Farmers are warning of food shortages as record rainfall threatens to bring the first season without a harvest on some farms since the end of the Second World War.
Vast swathes of farmland are still under water following an unprecedented period of flooding, with 11 named storms since September and the wettest 18 months on record.
The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has predicted that wheat yields will be down 15 per cent, winter barley down 22 per cent and oilseed rape down 28 per cent – the biggest drop since the 1980s.
Joe Stanley, an arable and livestock farmer at a research farm in Leicestershire, said he and his colleagues were facing the first year without a harvest since the land was first farmed after the war.
“Unless it basically stops raining today and then it becomes nice and sunny and windy, we’re not going to get any crops in this year. That’s a real danger,” he said. “Many farmers will be in the same situation.” Waterlogged fields at a farm near Outwell, in Norfolk, earlier this month - Getty Images/Martin Pope
Farmers are also facing the prospect that crops planted during the autumn will not have survived the flooding brought by repeated storms, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) said.
It warned that households could feel the effects of low crop yields and reduced lamb numbers, because many lambs have not survived the unseasonably cold temperatures and heavy rainfall.
“It’s no exaggeration to say a crisis is building,” said Rachel Hallos, the NFU vice president. “While farmers are bearing the brunt of it now, consumers may well see the effects through the year as produce simply doesn’t leave the farm gate.”
She added that the situation was a “growing issue for UK food security”, and welcomed a new fund for farmers affected by flooding.
Mr Stanley said farms were facing “an existential moment” because of the changing climate, which could put many out of business, reducing UK food security.
“The problem that we’re facing is that weather is becoming so extreme that it is overwhelming our ability as farmers to continue to grow crops at all in some places,” he said.
Mark Chatterton, a director at business advisers Duncan & Toplis, has estimated that the impact on farm businesses could be significantly worse than the 2019 floods, which led to an 18 per cent reduction in profits.
Farms in areas around the Midlands and the South West hit by Storm Henk in January will be able to claim grants of between £500 and £25,000 under the new fund, three months after it was first announced.
Mark Spencer, the farming minister, said: “I know how difficult this winter has been for farmers, with extreme weather such as Storm Henk having a devastating impact on both cropping and grazing, as well as damaging property and equipment.
“The Farming Recovery Fund will support farmers who suffered uninsurable damage with grants of up to £25,000, and sits alongside broader support in our farming schemes to improve flood resilience.”
Monday, April 01, 2024
Rice malt shows potential to play a bigger role in beer
Malted rice emerges as potential game-changer in beer brewing
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE
IMAGE:
MALTED RICE — SCOTT LAFONTAINE, LEFT, AND BERNARDO P. GUIMARAES EACH RAISE A GLASS OF MALTED RICE BEER FOLLOWING A YEAR-LONG STUDY THAT INVESTIGATED THE SUITABILITY OF RICE FOR MALTING AND BREWING.
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE PHOTO BY PADEN JOHNSON
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Rice is showing potential to play a more prominent role in beer brewing, and it helps that Arkansas produces a lot of it.
Arkansas grows about half of the rice in the United States, mostly long-grain. Meanwhile, climate change and international conflicts are leading to a shortage of the raw materials traditionally used for brewing beer, especially barley.
A new study titled “Investigating the Malting Suitability and Brewing Quality of Different Rice Cultivars,” published in February by the Beverages journal, suggests the potential for malted rice to yield robust fermentations in gluten-free, all-malt beer and also in styles that use high adjunct inclusions. An adjunct is an additional source of sugar for beer fermentation.
Rice and corn have been used as an adjunct grain by American brewers since the 1860s. But the rice has been milled white rice, and not malted. Since the malting qualities of U.S. rice cultivars had not yet been evaluated for brewing qualities, one goal of the study was to identify rice cultivars with high malting potential.
University of Arkansas food science graduate student Bernardo P. Guimaraes was the lead author of the malted rice study, which provides the first publicly available data on 19 rice varieties important to the U.S. rice industry that were malted and analyzed for brewing qualities. Flavor chemist and assistant professor in the food science department Scott Lafontaine served as Guimaraes’ advisor on the research.
“Does rice have what it takes? Scientifically, yes, it is possible,” Lafontaine said.
They have found rice malts with enough enzymatic capacity to fully convert their starch source into fermentable sugar, also known as self-saccharifying malts, that produce a sugary liquid called “wort” in brewing. Lafontaine says the wort from rice malt “seems to yield healthy fermentations with a standard yeast, without adding enzymes or nitrogen supplementation.”
Lafontaine and Guimaraes are both part of the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas and the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station. The experiment station is the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
No extra vessel with rice malt?
Malting is the process of germinating a grain through hydration and then drying and heating it to halt germination. The process forms enzymes required to turn the starch into sugar when soaked in hot water for the phase of brewing called “mashing.” Where rice is concerned, brewers have typically used milled white rice, and not rice malt. Using milled white rice calls for an additional brewing vessel because it needs to be boiled to gelatinize the starch so it can be converted into that sugary liquid called wort.
Malted rice, on the other hand, may not require a second vessel. Guimaraes and Lafontaine showed the malted rice to be self-saccharifying with the appropriate mashing conditions. In other words, with the right temperature and time, the starch could be broken down to fermentable sugars that yeast can assimilate and turn into alcohol.
As wheat flour is to bread, malted barley is to beer, with recipes calling for varying levels of a barley as a base malt along with other grains like wheat, rye and oats for different styles of beer. Additional ingredients like roasted barley, and roasted malted barley, develop different flavors and aromas.
In the study, long-grain rice when malted showed the most promise as a competitor to malted barley for sugar content and other brewing qualities. The study looked at short, medium and long-grain varieties of “paddy rice,” or rice with the chaff removed but not the husk. Interestingly, wild varieties of rice that had purple-pigmented brans produced naturally colored gluten-free beers with hues similar to wine.
New findings
Previous public studies on rice malt were performed on Italian and Indian varieties, and the study of U.S. rice malts offered two interesting discoveries, Lafontaine said. For one, the rice varieties had different gelatinization temperatures and mashing parameters seemed to have an impact on the onset of gelatinization.
“While we are not sure exactly what is occurring yet, this is likely due to the unique enzymatic profile of the rice malts and shows that brewers just have to alter their mashing conditions to effectively leverage this material in the brewery,” Lafontaine said of the lower gelatinization temperatures.
The other unexpected finding was that the malted rice showed higher protein levels than previously reported, which offers potential applications as an alternative protein source in foods, Lafontaine said. The new study showed the protein content ranged from 7 to 10.5 percent, and some rice cultivars had protein content comparable to malted barley.
Depending on the variety of rice grown, the study indicates the potential for a value-added product for farmers whose rice turns up with a high level of chalkiness during milling. Chalky rice is opaque and tends to break when being processed, making it less valuable as a food product. However, chalkiness would not have as much of a bearing on quality if sent to a maltster and turned into rice malt. High nighttime temperatures during a rice kernel’s development have been shown to contribute to chalkiness. As the climate warms, this will be a continual issue for farmers and scientists to contend with, Lafontaine noted.
Economics and flavor
Although the chemical analysis of the malted rice is promising, Lafontaine is working with the agricultural economics and agribusiness department to conduct a feasibility study considering many economic factors that compare malted rice and malted barley.
One of the most pressing economic factors is the cost of barley, which has increased in the past four years. The increase has made long-grain rice “cost equivalent” to barley, Lafontaine said. Barley is grown in areas with cooler climates, while rice is grown in warmer climates. So, climate change and global warming are other factors for long-term economic impacts of barley and rice as beer ingredients, he added.
“By offering a more locally sourced grain for Southern and U.S. brewers, despite paddy rice being proportionally more carbon dioxide intensive to grow than malted barley, the lack of international shipping may potentially make up the difference in carbon dioxide,” the study notes. “Additionally, rice is a gluten-free source of starch for brewers and beverage/food producers.”
Lafontaine intends to conduct a sensory panel with the various beers produced from rice malt. He and Guimaraes have noticed, for example, that some aromatic varieties of rice produced elevated levels of diacetyl, which has a buttery popcorn aroma often considered an off flavor in beer.
“As a sneak peak of the next part of this study, I can say that the rice varieties had many different and interesting aromas and flavors,” Guimaraes said. “I firmly believe they have great potential either as a standalone raw material or in conjunction with barley malt.”
The rice varieties were malted in small quantities during the study using techniques comparable to industry standards. With each small test batch, the researchers measured protein content, enzyme levels and other characteristics important to brewing. Lafontaine’s lab is licensed and bonded as the U of A Beverage Development Facility with an electric, 15-gallon brewing system to provide hands-on experience to students in the University of Arkansas Certificate of Proficiency in Brewing Science program.
Collaborators on the study included rice breeders at the Division of Agriculture’s Rice Research and Extension Center, researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station’s Rice Processing Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in Stuttgart, and Versuchs-und Lehranstalt fΓΌr Brauerei in Berlin, Germany.
The authors recognized the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board for supporting the research.
To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow us on π at @ArkAgResearch and Instagram at @ArkAgResearch.
To learn about Extension Programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit https://uaex.uada.edu/. Follow us on π at @AR_Extension.
To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on π at @AgInArk.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
TEST BATCHES — Beers made with malted rice are part of a study led by the University of Arkansas System to test the malting qualities of 19 U.S. rice varieties.
CREDIT
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture photo by John Lovett
Investigating the Malting Suitability and Brewing Quality of Different Rice Cultivars
Researchers Look to Rice for ‘Clean Label’ Ingredients
Using polyphenol-protein interactions can provide foods with clean label characteristics
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE
IMAGE:
CLEAN LABELS — ANNEGRET JANNASCH, LEFT, AND YA-JANE WANG, PROFESSOR OF CARBOHYDRATE CHEMISTRY, ARE LOOKING AT THE COMPONENTS OF PIGMENTED WAXY RICE TO SERVE AS A "CLEAN LABEL" STARCH STRENGTHENER.
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS SYSTEM DIVISION OF AGRICULTURE PHOTO BY ARIEL ROMERO
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Naturally occurring polyphenols and proteins from pigmented waxy rice may help starch ingredients improve texture without any chemical modification — a change some consumers may welcome, said Ya-Jane Wang, professor of carbohydrate chemistry.
Chemically modified starch is a common thickener in soups and other foods. Without modification, starch breaks down during high-temperature and high-shear food processing and no longer functions properly as a thickening agent.
As consumers express concerns over chemically modified ingredients, Wang is looking at alternatives. With the help of a $400,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant awarded in 2023, Wang is exploring how to use polyphenols and proteins naturally present in pigmented waxy rice as a natural starch strengthener.
Polyphenols are a micronutrient that naturally occur in plants. She used pigmented waxy rice because the presence of polyphenols in the rice and the polyphenol-protein interaction that arises. “Waxy” rice is also known as “sticky” or “sweet” rice due to its low level of amylose, one of the ingredients that make up starch. Higher levels of amylose cause the rice to separate and become fluffy, whereas lower levels of amylose produce higher viscosities. Polyphenol-protein interactions naturally present in the pigmented rice aid in retaining a food’s viscosity, or thickness, during the cooking process.
Wang conducts research for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. Her collaborators on the research include Annegret Jannasch, a doctoral student in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, who works under the direction of Wang; Anna McClung, a recently retired research geneticist at the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center; Sun-Ok Lee, associate professor of nutrition for the experiment station; post-doctoral researcher Zeina Alraawi; and Suresh Thallapuranam, Cooper Chair of Bioinformatics Research and professor of biochemistry.
Wang, Jannasch and Lee work in the food science department in the Bumpers College. Thallapuranam is joining the team from the chemistry and biochemistry department in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.
McClung provides the researchers with pigmented waxy rice samples.
“We propose that pigmented waxy rice can function like chemically modified starches but without the use of chemicals, so it will be a clean label ingredient,” Wang said.
“Clean label” is not a scientific term, but the food industry, academics and consumers define the phenomenon as choosing foods with easy-to-recognize ingredients and no artificial ingredients or synthetic chemicals, according to the Institute of Food Technologists.
Consumer perception
In recent years, consumers have raised concerns about ingredients used in food production, Wang noted. Some consumers aim to consume only minimally processed food.
The idea of minimal processing varies from person to person, Wang said. Some consumers prefer wheat flour, but others might consider wheat flour too processed and consume whole wheat flour instead.
“A lot of processed food is really for preservation or convenience,” Wang said. Food products such as ham, pickles and TV dinners, for example, are processed to help simplify food preparation for the consumer and to extend shelf life.
Wang’s research may alleviate these concerns related to modified starch.
Many foods contain modified starch, which is chemically altered to improve processing and storage stability, Wang said. Starches function as thickening agents to improve the texture and consistency of food products.
The inspiration for this project came from Wang’s recent research that explored the possibility of utilizing the interactions among polyphenols, protein and starch in pigmented waxy rice to increase satiation, the feeling of fullness. In that original project, Wang found that the pigmented waxy rice’s unique interactions between polyphenols and proteins allow starch to swell more in an acidic condition that simulates gastric environments.
“Starch, when it swells, is like a balloon — it becomes bigger and bigger,” Wang said. During food processing, “the temperature, the shear, the high acidity will completely break down the balloon. You want the balloon to swell more — that is how you create the viscosity — but you don’t want it to swell too much. The polyphenol-protein interactions help to maintain the starch structure so it will stay at that stage.
“That is why you can use starch to thicken any soup because the starch can swell more than 10 times its volume, but once it gets to that stage, it becomes very fragile,” she said.
Outside of consumer perception, Wang said that applying this pigmented waxy rice, as opposed to using modified starch, could provide additional environmental and health benefits.
With any chemical modification comes a residue, Wang said, so using a naturally occurring starch with these properties eliminates that concern. Polyphenols are present in many berries and vegetables, and a high amount of polyphenols are known to have anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic properties.
PIGMENTED WAXY RICE — Annegret Jannasch holds a dish of pigmented waxy rice, which research is showing to aid in strengthening starch.
CREDIT
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture photo by Ariel Romero
The next phase will determine the nature of the polyphenol-protein interactions in pigmented waxy rice. Interactions between polyphenols and proteins involve chemical bonds linking two molecules, and it is important because a strong bond helps maintain granule integrity under high shear, temperature and acidic conditions, Wang said.
Finally, the researchers will apply thermal processing conditions to alter the extent of polyphenol-protein interactions so the resulting products will produce a wide range of viscosities for different applications.
“We really want to see the possibility of commercializing the resulting technology,” Wang said. “We want to see if any companies are interested and work with them.”
Companies using this to make cereals, pudding, or pasta is something that Wang hopes to see.
Wang will share an update on this research at the USDA-NIFA project director meeting in Amherst, Massachusetts, on June 17-18.
To learn more about Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uada.edu. Follow us on π at @ArkAgResearch and Instagram at @ArkAgResearch.
To learn about Extension Programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit https://uaex.uada.edu/. Follow us on π at @AR_Extension.
To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit https://uada.edu/. Follow us on π at @AgInArk.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
Elucidating the effect of polyphenol-protein interactions on rheological properties of purple waxy rice
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Cocoa breaks US$10,000 record, with pricier chocolate to follow
Megan Durisin and Γine Quinn, Bloomberg News
Cocoa futures surged above an unprecedented US$10,000 a ton, extending a historic rally that’s already seen prices double this year and which is raising the cost of chocolate.
The market is being rattled by poor crops in key West African growers that has put the world on course for a third straight annual supply deficit. The industry is grappling with the legacy of poor returns paid to cocoa farmers and fears are mounting about being able to source enough beans.
As well as concerns about scarce physical supplies, pressures are also building in the financial market, where some traders have sold futures to hedge against physical holdings. But as they wait for the contracts to mature they need cash to meet margin calls on losses on derivatives, and in a rising market can be forced to close out short positions, helping to fuel the rally.
Futures jumped as much as 4.5 per cent to $10,080 in New York on Tuesday — a level that seemed unthinkable only a few months ago. The rally has pushed a technical gauge of prices into overbought territory for much of the last couple of months, though cocoa has continued to soar.
“When we’re at this price, it’s hard to tell whether these prices are justified,” said Paul Joules, an analyst at Rabobank in London. “Whenever we have a dip in the market, it seems to shoot straight back up, which is more to do with the commercials, they’ve been net buyers.”
Cocoa’s advance is bad news for consumers if chocolatiers keep passing on costs or sell bars that are smaller or have less chocolate in them. The looming Easter holiday is a peak period for chocolate consumption, and the lag between commodity and retail markets mean the brunt of the impact for shoppers still lies ahead.
There’s a risk the supply situation may worsen. Incoming European Union rules — aimed at stopping products that destroy forests from being sold in shops — may make it even harder for the bloc’s chocolate makers to secure supplies.
New harvest
Focus is now turning to West Africa’s upcoming mid-crop, the smaller of two annual harvests. Top grower Ivory Coast’s regulator expects that to shrink this season, Bloomberg has reported.
“The West African supply situation remains extremely tight going into the start of the mid-crop harvest next week, and that continues to underpin cocoa prices,” The Hightower Report said in a note.
Other growers, like Brazil and Ecuador, are seeking to ramp up production, but it takes a few years before newly-planted cocoa trees bear beans — delaying the relief to strained global supplies. A ratio of stockpiles-to-grindings will fall to the lowest in more than four decades this season, the International Cocoa Organization has forecast, reflecting the market’s precarious position.
Cocoa was up 3.5 per cent at $9,991 in New York on Tuesday. In other softs markets, raw sugar rose one per cent and arabica coffee edged higher.
In London, most-active cocoa futures have also more than doubled this year.
Higher chocolate prices part of wider trend as climate, other factors disrupt supply
Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press
Higher chocolate prices this Easter after bad crops on the other side of the world are just the latest example of disruptions in the food supply chain, a trend experts say consumers are noticing in growing numbers.
“I think people are becoming more interested in where their food comes from,” said Sophia Carodenuto, a professor of geography at the University of Victoria whose research specializes in global food systems.
The past few years have seen a number of high-profile disruptions including a spike in lettuce prices due to flooding in California, rising orange juice prices because of bad crops and higher wheat prices linked to the Russia-Ukraine war.
These kinds of disruptive events feel like they’re becoming more common, said Graeme Crosbie, senior economist at agriculture lending firm Farm Credit Canada.
Cocoa futures have “gone vertical” this year, especially in the last four or so months, said Crosbie.
Futures are a way of measuring commodity prices based on contracts for future delivery, a common way to track prices for commodities like wheat, gold and oil.
A February report by agriculture-focused co-operative bank CoBank said cocoa prices were nearly 65 per cent higher than a year ago, and New York futures prices were at a 46-year high.
Bad weather and disease in West Africa have damaged crop yields, said Crosbie, hurting supply for the product that goes into Halloween, Valentine’s Day and Easter candy.
“The confection business is going to bear the brunt of the margin impact due to cocoa,” Hershey chief financial officer Steven Voskuil told analysts on a conference call in February.
Most cocoa, especially the cocoa found in many popular chocolate products, comes from West Africa, Carodenuto said. CΓ΄te D’Ivoire, which she said produces about 40 per cent of the world’s cocoa, saw a 30 per cent decline in production over the past year due to climate change and disease, she said.
“That’s one of the main drivers of ... this huge rise in prices on the commodity markets,” she said.
“I think we're seeing this all over the world, that the rainy season and the dry season are no longer predictable the way that they had been.”
Unlike some crops, cocoa production is highly concentrated, meaning huge portions of the world’s supply are grown in a handful of areas, said Crosbie. This makes the crop and its supply chain more vulnerable to disruptions.
Cocoa prices don’t directly translate to retail prices, since there are many things other than cocoa that make up a chocolate bar, Crosbie said. But they do have an effect, and he expects retail prices to increase.
According to Statistics Canada inflation data, the price of confectionary items rose more than nine per cent between January 2023 and 2024, compared with overall inflation for food purchased from stores of 3.4 per cent.
Michael Medline, the chief executive of Sobeys parent company Empire Co. Ltd., told investors earlier in March the grocer is seeing “sizable” price increases from some of its suppliers that will “inevitably affect the customer.”
“This is largely driven by some commodities like sugar and cocoa continuing to be very volatile due to ongoing climate and geopolitical factors impacting global supply,” he said.
Higher cocoa prices are an obstacle for manufacturers who have already been struggling with higher sugar prices over the past three years, said senior food and beverage economist Billy Roberts in the CoBank press release.
“That could lead to a further erosion of chocolate volume sales and begin to impact dollar sales as well,” he said.
Consumers are becoming more aware of these kinds of disruptions as food prices have risen across the board, Crosbie said.
“I think people are certainly paying more attention to the prices themselves, and even how their food is produced.”
In a 2021 survey by Deloitte, almost three-quarters of respondents said it’s important for them to understand where their food comes from.
And cocoa is one of many food products that consumers are eyeing more critically.
Cocoa is indigenous to Central America, said Carodenuto, and naturally grows under a canopy of rainforest trees in a diverse ecosystem. But large swaths of rainforest in West Africa have actually been wiped out to make room for cocoa farming, meaning less ecological diversity and more vulnerable crops.
Higher commodity futures also don’t necessarily dictate the prices farmers are being paid in real time, noted Carodenuto.
In Ghana and CΓ΄te D’Ivoire, the largest-producing countries for cocoa, the government creates a minimum price for farmers for the season, she said. But the large multinational companies buying and trading cocoa enter into forward contracts, meaning prices are agreed upon in advance.
It takes a lot of manual labour and investment to build a cocoa farm, so farmers need support, especially financially, Carodenuto said.
There’s hope that the higher futures prices will lead to more income next year, but it’s not a guarantee, she added — cocoa prices are cyclical, meaning there will likely be a price crash at some point.
Consumers looking to make ethical spending decisions face a difficult choice, said Carodenuto, especially given the price gap between premium and ethically sourced chocolate and popular, mass-market confections.
Carodenuto said shoppers don’t need to stop buying chocolate, but they should educate themselves and seek supply chain transparency by looking for the origin of the cocoa in a product.
Shoppers who can afford to spend more can also seek out businesses that specialize in sourcing ethical cocoa products, she said.
In the long term, there is lots of potential for cocoa to be grown in a more sustainable manner, she said, but it could mean lower production in the short term.
“It's just that, who's going to pay for that? ... It shouldn't be the most marginalized actor in the system. It shouldn't be the smallholder farmer who has to pay for that.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2024.
With files from The Associated Press
Monday, March 04, 2024
Why Europe’s ambitious Green Deal hinges on farmers | Yves Herman/ReutersView caption
The growl of diesel-powered tractors, the stench of burning tires, manure sprayed at police. This week, in the normally staid Belgian capital of Brussels, months of protests by farmers across the 27-nation European Union became something much closer to a farmers rebellion.
And at its heart is a policy challenge with much wider, international implications: How can governments stem the rapid overheating of our planet, and build more environmentally sustainable economies, in a way that is politically sustainable as well?
For while the farmers’ grievances vary from country to country, their protests have been eagerly embraced by right-wing populist parties. The parties are taking aim at the EU’s ambitious European Green Deal, designed to make Europe the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050.
WHY WE WROTE THIS
Farmer protests in Europe pose a global question: How can governments make the shift to environmental sustainability politically sustainable?
With far-right groups already expected to make major gains in June’s elections for the European Parliament (that take place every five years), EU leaders have responded to the protests by beating a hasty retreat on a range of climate measures affecting agriculture.
Both France and Germany have shelved policies that would increase the price farmers pay for diesel fuel. The EU’s executive commission has backed away from Green Deal constraints on the use of inorganic fertilizers and some pesticides.
EU leaders still say they are determined to find longer-term arrangements that address farmers’ concerns while maintaining their commitment to their green economic agenda. Recommended
How, and whether, they succeed will be closely watched by the rest of the world.
Lisi Niesner/ReutersView caption
The EU does have one major reason to feel confident. Opinion surveys show that most European citizens by far rank climate change as a serious problem, and 88% say they’re on board with the EU’s 2050 carbon-neutral target.
Many of the farmers themselves are concerned by the effects of global warming. High on the list of protesters’ grievances in Greece, for instance, has been the lack of adequate, timely compensation for last year’s devastating wildfires and flooding there.
But if EU countries are going to meet their targets, they cannot avoid the kind of measures their leaders have now hurriedly sheathed: reductions in the use carbon fuels such as diesel, and in the emission of hydrogen pollutants and methane from fertilizers and dairy farming.
Agriculture accounts for only about 1.5% of the EU economy, but it accounts for 10% of the bloc’s emission of the greenhouse gases that fuel global warming.
And while a shift to more sustainable agriculture is likely to require government money, getting that money could prove to be the easiest part
One key question will be where that money is spent.
European farmers already get huge EU subsidies; they amount to nearly one-third of the bloc’s central budget. But most of that by far goes to a relatively small number of large farming businesses. Smaller farmers are left feeling economically squeezed.
That has been especially true in the past few years, when the war in Ukraine has caused fuel and fertilizer price hikes, while farming families have also had to deal with the general increase in consumer prices.
Farmers in Poland, especially, but other wheat producers in Europe, too, have also seen their earnings fall as a result of the EU’s decision to allow tariff-free sales of Ukrainian grain. That helps explain many of the protesters’ call for Brussels to abandon a potential new free trade deal with farmers in South America, seen as likely to drive down the price of their own crops.
But there’s an even tougher challenge, of which money is just one part, that has made the political message of the Green Deal’s populist critics so alluring
It is the need to address the sense of dislocation felt by farmers who are being made to change the way they work and live to facilitate a climate transition being promoted by urban politicians who are far less affected and far better placed financially to adapt.
This has been an especially important catalyst for the protests in Germany, powerfully symbolized by the dangling of farmers’ empty work boots from streetlights and signposts – expressing a sense of loss eloquently described by one local writer late last month.
Jolted by the protests into reassessing their approach, European leaders will have to acknowledge that mood. One obvious option under discussion would focus emission-reduction efforts on the large-scale farming enterprises best able to cope with the transition, while giving more flexibility, and direct support, to smaller farmers.
But the EU will now be keenly aware of the need for more careful management of the changes being required of other parts of its economy if it is going to make the Green Deal work, from the coal mines of Poland to the automakers of Italy.
And while climate change experts will be rooting for the EU to succeed, they are alarmed by its leaders’ scurrying retreat in the face of the farmer protests.
They are worried that this smells of political panic, and that it will encourage opponents of climate action to try to block, or at least whittle down, other key aspects of the Green Deal.
As one Belgian environmentalist, reacting to the Brussels street clashes this week, quipped, maybe “we should get tractors.”
Europe Succumbs to the Farmers’ Revolution
Najib Saab Secretary-General of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) and editor-in-chief of Environment and Development magazine
Sunday - 3 March 2024
Finally, Europe has succumbed to the farmers’ revolution, with the European Parliament elections around the corner. The main motivation for this turnaround by the European Commission was not to put an end to the throwing of cow dung and burning fodder at the doors of the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels, but rather the fear of the expansion of the extreme right. Before being elected to a second term next week, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen withdrew a draft law to reduce the use of chemical pesticides by half before 2030, while pledging to continue consultations on the matter.
In doing so, she spared the European Parliament embarrassment and facilitated her own re-election process. In the wake of farmers’ demonstrations and the smoke of protest fires in more than one capital, the European Parliament approved earlier this week a watered-down version of the Nature Restoration law, which requires the rehabilitation of 20 percent of natural sites and ecosystems, turning them into protected areas before the end of the current decade.
Both reducing chemical pesticides and reclaiming nature were an essential element of the agricultural section of the Green Deal, which was launched by the European Union in 2019. The agricultural strategy in the Deal aims at building a carbon-neutral agricultural sector by 2050, and to make agriculture and food production more environmentally friendly at all stages, under the farm-to-fork slogan, while protecting ecosystems and preserving biodiversity.
Backing down was not solely aimed at defusing the explosion sparked by street protests against the rise in fuel prices, the strict environmental measures that some considered extremely burdensome and obstructive to the economy, and cheap imported agricultural products that compete with local production. This turnaround, in essence, is an expression of growing concern about the further rise of the far right before the European elections next June.
In fact, right-wing extremist parties, that question the feasibility of European Union policies, to the extent of demanding exit from the EU in some extreme cases, are advancing today in 8 of the 27 member states. It is natural for EU enthusiasts to consider this a terrifying development, made possible due to the right’s exploitation of the pressure caused by the influx of immigrants on the economy and local communities, and the impact of high inflation rates on daily life. Populist rhetoric and right-wing party agendas focused on holding national authorities, and EU bodies in general, responsible. This found welcoming ears, especially with millions of immigrants and asylum seekers spreading beyond major cities, to become a majority in some small towns, thus threatening their social fabric.
The Farmers’ Revolution reached its peak with the emergence of the Farmer-Citizen movement in the Netherlands, which began with protests against the use of ammonia in fertilizers, which is the major cause of nitrogen emissions, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. The protest movement soon turned into a major political force, winning many seats in local councils and parliament, and allying itself with extremist right-wing parties, while expanding to more countries, not the least of which were France and Germany. Here we can understand the cause of alarm, for farmers who historically supported Christian Democrats and centrist parties, which makes their shift to the extreme right a real threat to reverse the traditional balance. Further complicating matters, the majority of the farmers’ movement supporters started switching alliances from their independent groups to populist parties, instead of returning to the centrist parties, in which they had lost confidence.
The roots of the problem go back to short-sighted policies pursued by governments over the past few decades, as they encouraged the establishment of large farms and the expansion of some products, including livestock, supported by financing facilities, with a focus on export. It is noteworthy that the vast areas allocated for growing fodder necessary for the production of meat, most of which is intended for export, have replaced essential crops consumed by humans, such as wheat and potatoes, forcing countries that historically produced these crops to import them for local consumption. When the same government coalitions later instituted policies that imposed restrictions on some products, farmers viewed this as a coup that put their investments at risk. Appeasing the farmers may put a temporary stop to roadblocks and the burning of piles of straw and fodder outside government headquarters, as well as at the doors of the European Union headquarters itself in Brussels, but the problem will not end there. What is required are realistic compromises that preserve the rights of people and nature, combined with far-sighted policies that do not change according to prevailing circumstances. In contrast to backtracking on environmental policies, which amounted to surrender, scientific achievements did not stop. The European Space Agency chose the advanced Dutch Tango satellite system to monitor emissions of greenhouse gases from their sources, especially methane and carbon dioxide. This is a system capable of measuring emissions from power plants, coal mines, oil and gas fields, factories, farms, landfills, all the way down to home chimneys, with unprecedented precision. Its use will allow for monitoring compliance with regulations and standards governing emissions, with the aim of giving support and exemptions or imposing penalties according to the results, as well as reducing fraud. This innovative system was developed in cooperation between universities, and scientific research centers alongside industries, with the support of the ministries of economy, climate, and education. Drawing on artificial intelligence technologies, it will be possible to use the system to predict air quality and climate change, thus helping to take proactive measures, based on the collection, correlation, and analysis of accurate satellite data. In thriving societies, science does not stop when politics fail. What is required is for scientists to communicate the results of their research clearly to all segments of society, so that government officials and people in general, including farmers, know the risks, caveats, and alternatives, in order to be able to set public policies on a scientific basis. Only a dialogue that balances scientific facts, economic realities, and people’s lives, is capable of coming up with balanced and positive compromises that are not subject to populism.
Saturday, February 03, 2024
PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Prisoners in the US Are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Popular Food Brands
They are among America’s most vulnerable laborers. They are often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job.
Source: Portside In this Aug. 18, 2011 photo, a prison guard rides a horse alongside prisoners as they return from farm work detail at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La. ,
Gerald Herbert
A hidden path to America’s dinner tables begins here, at an unlikely source – a former Southern slave plantation that is now the country’s largest maximum-security prison.
Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. After rumbling down a country road to an auction house, the cows are bought by a local rancher and then followed by The Associated Press another 600 miles to a Texas slaughterhouse that feeds into the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill.
Intricate, invisible webs, just like this one, link some of the world’s largest food companies and most popular brands to jobs performed by U.S. prisoners nationwide, according to a sweeping two-year AP investigation into prison labor that tied hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of agricultural products to goods sold on the open market.
They are among America’s most vulnerable laborers. If they refuse to work, some can jeopardize their chances of parole or face punishment like being sent to solitary confinement. They also are often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job.The goods these prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice. They are on the shelves of virtually every supermarket in the country, including Kroger, Target, Aldi and Whole Foods. And some goods are exported, including to countries that have had products blocked from entering the U.S. for using forced or prison labor.
Many of the companies buying directly from prisons are violating their own policies against the use of such labor. But it’s completely legal, dating back largely to the need for labor to help rebuild the South’s shattered economy after the Civil War. Enshrined in the Constitution by the 13th Amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude are banned – except as punishment for a crime.
Some prisoners work on the same plantation soil where slaves harvested cotton, tobacco and sugarcane more than 150 years ago, with some present-day images looking eerily similar to the past. In Louisiana, which has one of the country’s highest incarceration rates, men working on the “farm line” still stoop over crops stretching far into the distance.Willie Ingram picked everything from cotton to okra during his 51 years in the state penitentiary, better known as Angola.
During his time in the fields, he was overseen by armed guards on horseback and recalled seeing men, working with little or no water, passing out in triple-digit heat. Some days, he said, workers would throw their tools in the air to protest, despite knowing the potential consequences.
“They’d come, maybe four in the truck, shields over their face, billy clubs, and they’d beat you right there in the field. They beat you, handcuff you and beat you again,” said Ingram, who received a life sentence after pleading guilty to a crime he said he didn’t commit. He was told he would serve 10 ½ years and avoid a possible death penalty, but it wasn’t until 2021 that a sympathetic judge finally released him. He was 73.
The number of people behind bars in the United States started to soar in the 1970s just as Ingram entered the system, disproportionately hitting people of color. Now, with about 2 million people locked up, U.S. prison labor from all sectors has morphed into a multibillion-dollar empire, extending far beyond the classic images of prisoners stamping license plates, working on road crews or battling wildfires.
Though almost every state has some kind of farming program, agriculture represents only a small fraction of the overall prison workforce. Still, an analysis of data amassed by the AP from correctional facilities nationwide traced nearly $200 million worth of sales of farmed goods and livestock to businesses over the past six years – a conservative figure that does not include tens of millions more in sales to state and government entities. Much of the data provided was incomplete, though it was clear that the biggest revenues came from sprawling operations in the South and leasing out prisoners to companies.
Corrections officials and other proponents note that not all work is forced and that prison jobs save taxpayers money. For example, in some cases, the food produced is served in prison kitchens or donated to those in need outside. They also say workers are learning skills that can be used when they’re released and given a sense of purpose, which could help ward off repeat offenses. In some places, it allows prisoners to also shave time off their sentences. And the jobs provide a way to repay a debt to society, they say.
While most critics don’t believe all jobs should be eliminated, they say incarcerated people should be paid fairly, treated humanely and that all work should be voluntary. Some note that even when people get specialized training, like firefighting, their criminal records can make it almost impossible to get hired on the outside.
“They are largely uncompensated, they are being forced to work, and it’s unsafe. They also aren’t learning skills that will help them when they are released,” said law professor Andrea Armstrong, an expert on prison labor at Loyola University New Orleans. “It raises the question of why we are still forcing people to work in the fields.”A SHADOW WORKFORCE WITH FEW PROTECTIONS
In addition to tapping a cheap, reliable workforce, companies sometimes get tax credits and other financial incentives. Incarcerated workers also typically aren’t covered by the most basic protections, including workers’ compensation and federal safety standards. In many cases, they cannot file official complaints about poor working conditions.
These prisoners often work in industries with severe labor shortages, doing some of the country’s dirtiest and most dangerous jobs.
The AP sifted through thousands of pages of documents and spoke to more than 80 current or formerly incarcerated people, including men and women convicted of crimes that ranged from murder to shoplifting, writing bad checks, theft or other illegal acts linked to drug use. Some were given long sentences for nonviolent offenses because they had previous convictions, while others were released after proving their innocence.
Reporters found people who were hurt or maimed on the job, and also interviewed women who were sexually harassed or abused, sometimes by their civilian supervisors or the correctional officers overseeing them. While it’s often nearly impossible for those involved in workplace accidents to sue, the AP examined dozens of cases that managed to make their way into the court system. Reporters also spoke to family members of prisoners who were killed.
One of those was Frank Dwayne Ellington, who was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after stealing a man’s wallet at gunpoint – a result of Alabama’s habitual offenders act. In 2017, Ellington, 33, was cleaning a machine near the chicken “kill line” in Ashland at Koch Foods – one of the country’s biggest poultry-processing companies – when its whirling teeth caught his arm and sucked him inside, crushing his skull. He died instantly.
During a yearslong legal battle, Koch Foods at first argued Ellington wasn’t technically an employee, and later said his family should be barred from filing for wrongful death because the company had paid his funeral expenses. The case eventually was settled under undisclosed terms. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the company $19,500, saying workers had not been given proper training and that its machines had inadequate safety guards.
“It’s somebody’s child, it’s somebody’s dad, it’s somebody’s uncle, it’s somebody’s family,” said Ellington’s mother, Alishia Powell-Clark. “Yes, they did wrong, but they are paying for it.”
The AP found that U.S. prison labor is in the supply chains of goods being shipped all over the world via multinational companies, including to countries that have been slapped with import bans by Washington in recent years. For instance, the U.S. has blocked shipments of cotton coming from China, a top manufacturer of popular clothing brands, because it was produced by forced or prison labor. But crops harvested by U.S. prisoners have entered the supply chains of companies that export to China.
While prison labor seeps into the supply chains of some companies through third-party suppliers without them knowing, others buy direct. Mammoth commodity traders that are essential to feeding the globe like Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, Archer Daniels Midland and Consolidated Grain and Barge – which together post annual revenues of more than $400 billion – have in recent years scooped up millions of dollars’ worth of soy, corn and wheat straight from prisons, which compete with local farmers.
The AP reached out for comment to the companies it identified as having connections to prison labor, but most did not respond.
Cargill acknowledged buying goods from prison farms in Tennessee, Arkansas and Ohio, saying they constituted only a small fraction of the company’s overall volume. It added that “we are now in the process of determining the appropriate remedial action.”
McDonald’s said it would investigate links to any such labor, while Archer Daniels Midland and General Mills, which produces Gold Medal flour, pointed to their policies in place restricting suppliers from using forced labor. Whole Foods responded flatly: “Whole Foods Market does not allow the use of prison labor in products sold at our stores.”
Bunge said it sold all facilities that were sourcing from correction departments in 2021, so they are “no longer part of Bunge’s footprint.”
Dairy Farmers of America, a cooperative that bills itself as the top supplier of raw milk worldwide, said that while it has been buying from correctional facilities, it now only has one “member dairy” at a prison, with most of that milk used inside.
To understand the business of prison labor and the complex movement of agricultural goods, the AP collected information from all 50 states, through public records requests and inquiries to corrections departments. Reporters also crisscrossed the country, following trucks transporting crops and livestock linked to prison work, and tailed transport vans from prisons and work-release sites heading to places such as poultry plants, egg farms and fast-food restaurants. A lack of transparency and, at times, baffling losses exposed in audits, added to the challenges of fully tracking the money.
Big-ticket items like row crops and livestock are sold on the open market, with profits fed back into agriculture programs. For instance, about a dozen state prison farms, including operations in Texas, Virginia, Kentucky and Montana, have sold more than $60 million worth of cattle since 2018.
As with other sales, the custody of cows can take a serpentine route. Because they often are sold online at auction houses or to stockyards, it can be almost impossible to determine where the beef eventually ends up.
Sometimes there’s only one way to know for sure.
In Louisiana, an AP reporter watched as three long trailers loaded with more than 80 cattle left the state penitentiary. The cows raised by prisoners traveled for about an hour before being unloaded for sale at Dominique’s Livestock Market in Baton Rouge.
As they were shoved through a gate into a viewing pen, the auctioneer jokingly warned buyers “Watch out!” The cows, he said, had just broken out of prison.
Within minutes, the Angola lot was snapped up by a local livestock dealer, who then sold the cattle to a Texas beef processor that also buys cows directly from prisons in that state. Meat from the slaughterhouse winds up in the supply chains of some of the country’s biggest fast-food chains, supermarkets and meat exporters, including Burger King, Sam’s Club and Tyson Foods.
“It’s a real slap in the face, to hear where all those cattle are going,” said Jermaine Hudson, who served 22 years at Angola on a robbery conviction before he was exonerated.
He said it’s especially galling because the food served in prison tasted like slop.
“Those were some of the most disrespectful meals,” Hudson said, “that I ever, in my life, had to endure.”THE RISE OF PRISON LABOR
Angola is imposing in its sheer scale. The so-called “Alcatraz of the South” is tucked far away, surrounded by alligator-infested swamps in a bend of the Mississippi River. It spans 18,000 acres – an area bigger than the island of Manhattan – and has its own ZIP code.
The former 19th-century antebellum plantation once was owned by one of the largest slave traders in the U.S. Today, it houses some 3,800 men behind its razor-wire walls, about 65 percent of them Black. Within days of arrival, they typically head to the fields, sometimes using hoes and shovels or picking crops by hand. They initially work for free, but then can earn between 2 cents and 40 cents an hour.
Calvin Thomas, who spent more than 17 years at Angola, said anyone who refused to work, didn’t produce enough or just stepped outside the long straight rows knew there would be consequences.
“If he shoots the gun in the air because you done passed that line, that means you’re going to get locked up and you’re going to have to pay for that bullet that he shot,” said Thomas, adding that some days were so blistering hot the guards’ horses would collapse.
“You can’t call it anything else,” he said. “It’s just slavery.”
Louisiana corrections spokesman Ken Pastorick called that description “absurd.” He said the phrase “sentenced with hard labor” is a legal term referring to a prisoner with a felony conviction.
Pastorick said the department has transformed Angola from “the bloodiest prison in America” over the past several decades with “large-scale criminal justice reforms and reinvestment into the creation of rehabilitation, vocational and educational programs designed to help individuals better themselves and successfully return to communities.” He noted that pay rates are set by state statute.
Current and former prisoners in both Louisiana and Alabama have filed class-action lawsuits in the past four months saying they have been forced to provide cheap – or free – labor to those states and outside companies, a practice they also described as slavery.
Prisoners have been made to work since before emancipation, when slaves were at times imprisoned and then leased out by local authorities.
But after the Civil War, the 13th Amendment’s exception clause that allows for prison labor provided legal cover to round up thousands of mostly young Black men. Many were jailed for petty offenses like loitering and vagrancy. They then were leased out by states to plantations like Angola and some of the country’s biggest companies, including coal mines and railroads. They were routinely whipped for not meeting quotas while doing brutal and often deadly work.
The convict-leasing period, which officially ended in 1928, helped chart the path to America’s modern-day prison-industrial complex.
Incarceration was used not just for punishment or rehabilitation but for profit. A law passed a few years later made it illegal to knowingly transport or sell goods made by incarcerated workers across state lines, though an exception was made for agricultural products. Today, after years of efforts by lawmakers and businesses, corporations are setting up joint ventures with corrections agencies, enabling them to sell almost anything nationwide.
Civilian workers are guaranteed basic rights and protections by OSHA and laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act, but prisoners, who are often not legally considered employees, are denied many of those entitlements and cannot protest or form unions.
“They may be doing the exact same work as people who are not incarcerated, but they don’t have the training, they don’t have the experience, they don’t have the protective equipment,” said Jennifer Turner, lead author of a 2022 American Civil Liberties Union report on prison labor.
Almost all of the country’s state and federal adult prisons have some sort of work program, employing around 800,000 people, the report said. It noted the vast majority of those jobs are connected to tasks like maintaining prisons, laundry or kitchen work, which typically pay a few cents an hour if anything at all. And the few who land the highest-paying state industry jobs may earn only a dollar an hour.
Altogether, labor tied specifically to goods and services produced through state prison industries brought in more than $2 billion in 2021, the ACLU report said. That includes everything from making mattresses to solar panels, but does not account for work-release and other programs run through local jails, detention and immigration centers and even drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities.
Some incarcerated workers with just a few months or years left on their sentences have been employed everywhere from popular restaurant chains like Burger King to major retail stores and meat-processing plants. Unlike work crews picking up litter in orange jumpsuits, they go largely unnoticed, often wearing the same uniforms as their civilian counterparts.
Outside jobs can be coveted because they typically pay more and some states deposit a small percentage earned into a savings account for prisoners’ eventual release. Though many companies pay minimum wage, some states garnish more than half their salaries for items such as room and board and court fees.
It’s a different story for those on prison farms. The biggest operations remain in the South and crops are still harvested on a number of former slave plantations, including in Arkansas, Texas and at Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Farm. Those states, along with Florida, Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia, pay nothing for most types of work.
Most big farms, including Angola, have largely mechanized many of their operations, using commercial-size tractors, trucks and combines for corn, soy, rice and other row crops. But prisoners in some places continue to do other work by hand, including clearing brush with swing blades.
“I was in a field with a hoe in my hand with maybe like a hundred other women. We were standing in a line very closely together, and we had to raise our hoes up at the exact same time and count ‘One, two, three, chop!’” said Faye Jacobs, who worked on prison farms in Arkansas.
Jacobs, who was released in 2018 after more than 26 years, said the only pay she received was two rolls of toilet paper a week, toothpaste and a few menstrual pads each month.
She recounted being made to carry rocks from one end of a field to the other and back again for hours, and said she also endured taunting from guards saying “Come on, hos, it’s hoe squad!” She said she later was sent back to the fields at another prison after women there complained of sexual harassment by staff inside the facility.
“We were like ‘Is this a punishment?’” she said. “‘We’re telling y’all that we’re being sexually harassed, and you come back and the first thing you want to do is just put us all on hoe squad.’”
David Farabough, who oversees the state’s 20,000 acres of prison farms, said Arkansas’ operations can help build character.
“A lot of these guys come from homes where they’ve never understood work and they’ve never understood the feeling at the end of the day for a job well-done,” he said. “We’re giving them purpose. … And then at the end of the day, they get the return by having better food in the kitchens.”
In addition to giant farms, at least 650 correctional facilities nationwide have prisoners doing jobs like landscaping, tending greenhouses and gardens, raising livestock, beekeeping and even fish farming, said Joshua Sbicca, director of the Prison Agriculture Lab at Colorado State University. He noted that corrections officials exert power by deciding who deserves trade-building jobs like welding, for example, and who works in the fields.
In several states, along with raising chickens, cows and hogs, corrections departments have their own processing plants, dairies and canneries. But many states also hire out prisoners to do that same work at big private companies.
The AP met women in Mississippi locked up at restitution centers, the equivalent of debtors’ prisons, to pay off court-mandated expenses. They worked at Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and other fast-food chains and also have been hired out to individuals for work like lawn mowing or home repairs.
“There is nothing innovative or interesting about this system of forced labor as punishment for what in so many instances is an issue of poverty or substance abuse,” said Cliff Johnson, director of the MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi.
In Alabama, where prisoners are leased out by companies, AP reporters followed inmate transport vans to poultry plants run by Tyson Foods, which owns brands such as Hillshire Farms, Jimmy Dean and Sara Lee, along with a company that supplies beef, chicken and fish to McDonald’s. The vans also stopped at a chicken processor that’s part of a joint-venture with Cargill, which is America’s largest private company. It brought in a record $177 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2023 and supplies conglomerates like PepsiCo.
Though Tyson did not respond to questions about direct links to prison farms, it said that its work-release programs are voluntary and that incarcerated workers receive the same pay as their civilian colleagues.
Some people arrested in Alabama are put to work even before they’ve been convicted. An unusual work-release program accepts pre-trial defendants, allowing them to avoid jail while earning bond money. But with multiple fees deducted from their salaries, that can take time.
The AP went out on a work detail with a Florida chain gang wearing black-and-white striped uniforms and ankle shackles, created after Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey took office in 2012. He said the unpaid work is voluntary and so popular that it has a waitlist.
“It’s a win-win,” he said. “The inmate that’s doing that is learning a skill set. … They are making time go by at a faster pace. The other side of the win-win is, it’s generally saving the taxpayers money.”
Ivey noted it’s one of the only remaining places in the country where a chain gang still operates.
“I don’t feel like they should get paid,” he said. “They’re paying back their debt to society for violating the law.”
Elsewhere, several former prisoners spoke positively about their work experiences, even if they sometimes felt exploited.
“I didn’t really think about it until I got out, and I was like, ‘Wow, you know, I actually took something from there and applied it out here,’” said William “Buck” Saunders, adding he got certified to operate a forklift at his job stacking animal feed at Cargill while incarcerated in Arizona.
Companies that hire prisoners get a reliable, plentiful workforce even during unprecedented labor shortages stemming from immigration crackdowns and, more recently, the coronavirus pandemic.
In March 2020, though all other outside company jobs were halted, the Arizona corrections department announced about 140 women were being abruptly moved from their prison to a metal hangar-like warehouse on property owned by Hickman’s Family Farms, which pitches itself as the Southwest’s largest egg producer.
Hickman’s has employed prisoners for nearly 30 years and supplies many grocery stores, including Costco and Kroger, marketing brands such as Eggland’s Best and Land O’ Lakes. It is the state corrections department’s largest labor contractor, bringing in nearly $35 million in revenue over the past six fiscal years.
“The only reason they had us out there was because they didn’t want to lose that contract because the prison makes so much money off of it,” said Brooke Counts, who lived at Hickman’s desert site, which operated for 14 months. She was serving a drug-related sentence and said she feared losing privileges or being transferred to a more secure prison yard if she refused to work.
Counts said she knew prisoners who were seriously hurt, including one woman who was impaled in the groin and required a helicopter flight to the hospital and another who lost part of a finger.
Hickman’s, which has faced a number of lawsuits stemming from inmate injuries, did not respond to emailed questions or phone messages seeking a response. Corrections department officials would not comment on why the women were moved off-site, saying it happened during a previous administration. But a statement at the time said the move was made to “ensure a stable food supply while also protecting public health and the health of those in our custody.”
Some women employed by Hickman’s earned less than $3 an hour after deductions, including 30 percent taken by the state for room and board, even though they were living in the makeshift dormitory.
“While we were out there, we were still paying the prison rent,” Counts said. “What for?”FOLLOWING THE MONEY
The business of prison labor is so vast and convoluted that tracing the money can be challenging. Some agricultural programs regularly go into the red, raising questions in state audits and prompting investigations into potential corruption, mismanagement or general inefficiency.
Nearly half the agricultural goods produced in Texas between 2014 and 2018 lost money, for example, and a similar report in Louisiana uncovered losses of around $3.8 million between fiscal years 2016 and 2018. A separate federal investigation into graft at the for-profit arm of Louisiana’s correctional department led to the jailing of two employees.
Correctional officials say steep farming expenditures and unpredictable variables like weather can eat into profits. And while some goods may do poorly, they note, others do well.
Prisons at times have generated revenue by tapping into niche markets or to their states’ signature foods.
During the six-year period the AP examined, surplus raw milk from a Wisconsin prison dairy went to BelGioioso Cheese, which makes Polly-O string cheese and other products that land in grocery stores nationwide like Whole Foods. A California prison provided almonds to Minturn Nut Company, a major producer and exporter. And until 2022, Colorado was raising water buffalo for milk that was sold to giant mozzarella cheesemaker Leprino Foods, which supplies major pizza companies like Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s.
But for many states, it’s the work-release programs that have become the biggest cash generators, largely because of the low overhead. In Alabama, for instance, the state brought in more than $32 million in the past five fiscal years after garnishing 40 percent of prisoners’ wages.
In some states, work-release programs are run on the local level, with sheriffs frequently responsible for handling the books and awarding contracts. Even though the programs are widely praised – by the state, employers and often prisoners themselves – reports of abuse exist.
In Louisiana, where more than 1,200 companies hire prisoners through work release, sheriffs get anywhere from about $10 to $20 a day for each state prisoner they house in local jails to help ease overcrowding. And they can deduct more than half of the wages earned by those contracted out to companies – a huge revenue stream for small counties.
Jack Strain, a former longtime sheriff in the state’s St. Tammany Parish, pleaded guilty in 2021 in a scheme involving the privatization of a work-release program in which nearly $1.4 million was taken in and steered to Strain, close associates and family members. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which came on top of four consecutive life sentences for a broader sex scandal linked to that same program.
Incarcerated people also have been contracted to companies that partner with prisons. In Idaho, they’ve sorted and packed the state’s famous potatoes, which are exported and sold to companies nationwide. In Kansas, they’ve been employed at Russell Stover chocolates and Cal-Maine Foods, the country’s largest egg producer. Though the company has since stopped using them, in recent years they were hired in Arizona by Taylor Farms, which sells salad kits in many major grocery stores nationwide and supplies popular fast-food chains and restaurants like Chipotle Mexican Grill.
Some states would not provide the names of companies taking part in transitional prison work programs, citing security concerns. So AP reporters confirmed some prisoners’ private employers with officials running operations on the ground and also followed inmate transport vehicles as they zigzagged through cities and drove down country roads. The vans stopped everywhere from giant meat-processing plants to a chicken and daiquiri restaurant.
One pulled into the manicured grounds of a former slave plantation that has been transformed into a popular tourist site and hotel in St. Francisville, Louisiana, where visitors pose for wedding photos under old live oaks draped with Spanish moss.
As a reporter watched, a West Feliciana Parish van emblazoned with “Sheriff Transitional Work Program” pulled up. Two Black men hopped out and quickly walked through the restaurant’s back door. One said he was there to wash dishes before his boss called him back inside.
The Myrtles, as the antebellum home is known, sits just 20 miles away from where men toil in the fields of Angola.
“Slavery has not been abolished,” said Curtis Davis, who spent more than 25 years at the penitentiary and is now fighting to change state laws that allow for forced labor in prisons.
“It is still operating in present tense,” he said. “Nothing has changed.”