Hunger Hits Latina/o Children the Hardest

THE 2008 USDA HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY REPORT: 1 IN 3 HISPANIC CHILDREN EXPERIENCE HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION


  El Rito, CO.  From the comfort of our home, on the day after Thanksgiving, we are enjoying meals made with ingredients we grew on our land over the spring and summer. We enjoy our bounty, but with a restless mindfulness born of the fact that we cannot forget that hunger in the United States is a growing menace that threatens the health and well-being of millions of American families.

Now comes the annual "food security" report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the news is troubling indeed. The report, entitled Household Food Security in the United States, 2008, was prepared by Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson as Volume 83 of the Economic Research Report Series and was released in November 2009. To obtain a copy of the report, click here.

Highlights of the report include data indicating that 14.6 percent of U.S. households, or about 17 million households, experienced "food insecurity" (hunger) at least some time during the year. This translates to roughly 40 million persons. The study also reports that close to 6 percent of American households experienced "very low food security—meaning that the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food."

According to the report, "Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were up from 11.1 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively, in 2007, and were the highest recorded since 1995, when the first national food security survey was conducted." In other words, hunger has increased dramatically in the U.S. over the course of the previous eight year Bush II administration and especially ever since the current economic meltdown increased unemployment and underemployment.

Not only are more people going hungry, even the "typical food-secure household" is spending more of its monthly income on food. "Food secure" households are "typically spending 31 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition."

One especially significant finding of the report is that food insecurity [sic] is basically an aspect of  continued structured racism since the incidence of hunger is more likely to affect Latina/o and African American communities. It is also a form of structural violence against women since households led by single mothers suffer some of the highest rates of hunger and malnutrition. As the report states:

...The prevalence of food insecurity varied considerably among different types of households. Rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average for households with incomes near or below the Federal poverty line, households with children headed by single women or single men, and Black and Hispanic households. Food insecurity was more common in large cities and rural areas than in suburban areas and other outlying areas around large cities.

The study further reports that hunger affects nearly 27 percent of Hispanic [sic] households; this constitutes more than 1 in every 4 Hispanic households (Table 2 on page 10). The situation is even more desperate for Hispanic households with children: The food insecurity rate for this group is an astounding 32.1 percent or about 1 in every 3 households (Table 3 on page 12). This compares with 15.5 percent of White non-Hispanic households and 31.9 percent of Black non-Hispanic households.

The report also suggests that hunger among the "undocumented" immigrant population is even more widespread than these averages indicate. One reason is that undocumented households are not eligible to participate in "safety net" programs like food stamps and other social welfare services. While many low-income Latina/o families are hamstrung by higher rates of joblessness, they do generally have access to these federally-funded food and nutritional assistance programs. This is not the case with undocumented households.

It seems more than amazing and unbelievable that the "World's Bread Basket" is also a place where 1 of every 3 Latina/o children go hungry and face chronic malnutrition. One has to ask why the U.S. food system has failed to provide access to safe, nutritious, and culturally-resonant food for one-third of its youthful population. This is more than a call for righteous indignation, it is a call for action. It is perhaps also a grave signpost on the continuing crooked road toward the graveyard of American capitalism? Maybe that is the only corpse we ought to starve to death?

La lucha por La Sierra - Part III

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE ENDURING COMMONS

La Sierra Commons at sunrise.

Common-property regimes have existed in various communities, and in places continue to exist. These institutions are not anachronistic relics of mere anthropological interest, but flexible devices with potential value for addressing current environmental problems if they are properly understood. It seems that generations of culture and experience [in place] have instilled productive norms in human behavior and crafted rules that have the potential to steer us away from commons tragedies.
Mulder and Coppolillo (2005:155)

EL RITO, CO. It long has been established within the field of environmental anthropology that the "common pool resource" or CPR constitutes the oldest form of social organization for long-term resilient human inhabitation of places. To understand why this is the case, it is important to consider that most local place-based cultures do not think of the commons as "property," at least not in the sense that it is thought to be some "thing" you can sell for money to the highest bidder. The commons is instead considered a "place-based natural asset." It is the legacy of future generations and the source of their prospects for continued right livelihood in ancestral "home lands" rich with meaning, memory, and feeling.

Native American cultures already inhabited the "commons" as such, and well before the concept came into widespread use in social science circles. To this day, these aboriginal territories are not thought of as property to be owned by individuals. Instead, the land, water, and all living things are considered participants in a mutually-constituted existence. The protection of these interconnections implies a set of "original instructions" that forbid behavior that misuses or brings harm to the land, water, and biota. For recent discussions of the concept, please consult the book, Original Instructions, edited by Melissa K. Nelson and available from the Bioneers Store by clicking here.

The concept of original instructions is based on an ontology of "mutual obligations" rather than "individualistic property rights." Humans are obliged to respect and nurture the environment as a "home" rather than treating it as property to be exploited for individual gain or uninhabited wilderness to be kept separate from humans. Since the ecosystems we inhabit are shared with other living beings, humans are obligated to care for and not diminish the health of this shared space I call "homeland common."

This does not mean that the human inhabitants must keep their "hands off" the environment. It does imply that humans must follow "rules" if they are to act as responsible residents of their own neighborhood on the planet, that is, in a manner that nurtures both biological and cultural diversity.

Ostrom's Principles of Enduring Commons Management

Studies of the commons initiated by Nobel Laureate, Elinor Ostrom, suggest that CPRs are in many cases the most effective strategy to organize environmentally-sustainable and socially-just inhabitation of "natural resource domains." A fairly recent summary (2005) of the evidence is presented in the book, Conservation: Linking ecology, economics, and culture by Monique Borgerhoff Mulder and Peter Coppolillo. For a preview of Mulder and Coppolillo, click here.

The traditional commons is a closed-access system, which means that only those users within the established community in clearly-defined boundaries have rights to the CPR.  This is distinct from the open-access commons (really public domain) that was criticized by Garrett Hardin (1968) in his classic (mis)statement of the issues, “The tragedy of the commons.” (See my blog entries for Aug 30, Oct 7, and Oct 14).

Decades of research on CPRs have led to the identification of eight principles for successful (resilient, enduring) intergenerational use of the commons. The design principles for enduring commons institutions were first described and outlined by Elinor Ostrom (1990) in work recently recognized by the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics as a truly distinguished contribution to theories of economic behavior and organization. Ostrom identified the following eight principles of the enduring commons:

1.    Clearly defined boundaries: Individuals and households with rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR, and the boundaries of the CPR itself are clearly defined.

2.    Congruence: The distribution of benefits from appropriation rules is roughly proportionate to the costs imposed by provision rules; appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and quantity of resource units are related to local conditions.

3.    Collective-choice arrangements: Most individuals affected by operational rules can participate in modifying operational rules.

4.    Monitoring: Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators themselves.

5.    Graduated sanctions: Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to receive graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) from other appropriators, from officials accountable to these appropriators, or from both.

6.    Conflict-resolution mechanisms: Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost, local arenas to resolve conflict among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.

7.    Minimal regulation of rights to organize: The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities.

For CPRs that are parts of larger systems:

8.    Nested enterprises: Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises (Burger et al. 2001: 29)

These eight design principles have worked effectively in a wide range of cultural contexts.  In most cases, a recurring critical issue is that resilient inhabitation of the commons depends on the ability of use rights holders to associate as common's members and to balance their uses (consumption of forage, timber, medicine herbs, etc.) with the restoration or regeneration of the "resource units." The exercise of use rights can be sustained if the community fulfills its obligation to protect the resource base and this requires active local governance and adaptive management, including the ability to impose sanctions on violators of association rules for the exercise of use rights.

Can These Principles be Applied to La Sierra Commons?

In the case of La Sierra, the answer to this question is a qualified "yes." Research conducted over the past fifteen years suggests that the local community of heirs and successors with use rights to the commons are indeed already organizing a framework to exercise their use rights. This currently involves a newly-emergent process that nominally meets the eight criteria for long-term resilience and sustainability as originally outlined by Ostrom and others (e.g., Mulder and Coppolillo cited above).

Striving to fulfill each of the eight principles in the context of La Sierra will involve resolving serious deep-seated contradictions and tensions among various "stakeholder" groups who will need to negotiate and adapt with one another to implement and sustain these principles over time. The results of this contentious process are not in, but the signs of progress (including effective mobilization of the community of use rights holders) are encouraging.

1.    Clearly defined boundaries: La Sierra has clearly defined geographic and legal boundaries. Individuals and households with use rights to the “Mountain Tract” are also clearly defined by legal standing and court decisions (Lobato v. Taylor). For the text of this landmark decision, click here.

However, the lower court has very likely created a potential source of conflict for effective and enduring management by including a vast class of newcomers who have been, in my opinion, erroneously considered eligible "successors." These are the class of "beneficiaries" consisting of recently settled retirees and second home owners residing on subdivisions on La Mesa de San Pedro.  Truthfully, they have little, if any, interaction with the local community and can demonstrate little depth of shared history or family roots in the area.

The lower court likely should not consider this population as successors because: (1) The mesa-top landholdings, while technically part of the historic vara-strip long-lots deeded by Beaubien with use rights to the commons, actually involve parcels that were never intended to be settled as independent residential or agricultural areas. (2) Thus, no new use rights would have been attached to these as separate extensions of the original vara strips. (3) None of the newcomers to these upland areas exercised use rights through adverse possession or prescriptive easement. Therefore, none of these could have been denied their due process since these home lots did not exist in 1960. (4) These uplands were set aside for communal hunting, grazing, and gathering activities. In a sense, they too functioned as part of the watershed commons.

The court remains therefore still to be challenged into setting a more strict standard for "successor status" involving only those deeds related to the acequia-irrigated portions of the historic acequia-riparian long-lot settlements. [This incidentally is already implied in the language of the new "Acequia Recognition" law signed by Governor Ritter in April of this year]. The court must come to understand that the commons use rights are not just attached to an entire vara-strip, but to the occupation of the arable lands served by acequias in the bottoms and that these water use rights were effective only through participating with and belonging to a community. The lower court, in implementing the Supreme Court decision, must hold that heirs and successors meet the standard of sustained (daily, direct-lived) interaction in the affairs and livelihoods of the community. Anything less will make the challenge of an enduring commons regime more difficult.

Another challenge is that there may be additional individual "heirs" with legitimate use rights, confirmed and unconfirmed, who may refuse to join the association. This means that issues of boundary maintenance will occur until the scope of heir and successor use rights is affirmed and all use rights holders agree to participate in the association.

Finally, the internal boundaries for (shifting) grazing and non-grazing areas need to be determined. The association must map these areas in a realistic way that does not over-estimate forage and stocking potential. Mapping must correspond to specific uses and users, preferred types of rotational grazing practices (e.g., transhumance), use of fire and grazing to expand and sustain the health of upland forage meadows, introduction of longer duration rotation islands for wood harvest as part of an aggressive reforestation program, and protection of all other ecological values and especially those related to watershed integrity and acequia functioning.

2.    Congruence: The use of the land grant commons could serve to maximize beneficial use for all association members while protecting and expanding the livelihood value of the "resource base." This also means that the costs of provision of use rights will not exceed the costs of participation. The costs associated with membership in the association (dues, work duties) could be roughly proportional to the benefits accruing to individual households, including rights of access to a revolving credit fund for start-up herders. The appropriation rights may also be subject by the association to participation in ecology restoration and regeneration projects to address the need for more pasture lands (i.e., expansion of middle elevation meadows through prescribed burning and selective logging, etc.) The rules of appropriation clearly include time, place, and extent of use (by grazers and gatherers), number of association members, and “dues” which will allow the association to purchase infrastructure (corrals, cross fencing, repairs to culverts and roads), pay for legal expenses, and hire consultants or camp workers.

3.    Collective-choice arrangements: The "grazing" association will be managed through participatory governance which might include mandatory attendance at meetings and establishment of avenues through which members can modify, challenge, and create the association rules. Since the association will be composed of grazers and gatherers, who will (most likely) be using the land grant at different times and who compose different social groups, participation in set meetings is necessary to promote collaborative decision-making among different use rights holders. There are also some likely difficulties that may stem from the current organizational form that requires direct "heir" status for membership in the grazing association. This would exclude the class of beneficiaries defined by the court as "successors" of original land grant heirs with historically-deeded long lots. The bifurcation of heirs and successors could undermine the effectiveness of managing against any "free riders." There are also some heirs that refuse to join the association and they too may come to represent a "free rider problem" from the vantage of the association's management objectives.

4.    Monitoring: Members could be elected to serve as section representatives to monitor and enforce association rules of appropriation; these monitors should be frequently re-elected. It would be in the association’s best interest if there was a coalition of monitors including at least one individual from the “gatherers” and the “grazers.” Responsibilities of this position might include: inspecting for ecological damage (overgrazing, over harvesting), encouraging attendance to meetings, organizing meetings, overseeing finances, and enacting sanctions. Monitoring requires a "base-line" of forage and other relevant ecological and watershed conditions. What is the state of the watershed that the association seeks to protect, or perhaps restore? Monitoring thus would involve not just gathering information to regulate use rights and to set the groundwork for imposing sanctions against violators of use norms; monitoring would also entail collaborating with natural scientists to collect long-term observations on the changing condition of the range lands and the watershed values essential for acequia functioning.

5.    Graduated sanctions: The association must enforce sanctions against users who violate rules. Enforcement of rules works best when monitors rely on “norms” rather than coercion. Sometimes invoking verguenza is all it takes to get a user to change the behavior that is causing harm to others or the ecology. There will be cases where the association will have to deal with repeat violators of association rules. These may receive graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) from other appropriators, from officials accountable to these appropriators, or from both. This could start with a reprimand, proceed through cooperative work requirements on reforestation projects, etc., and finally fines or varying lengths of expulsion.

6.    Conflict-resolution mechanisms: The enduring commons management institution provides “rapid access to low-cost, local arenas to resolve conflict.” This might be difficult to provide since the association is in a geographically-isolated area and access to appropriate local legal venues might be limited. Furthermore, local, low-cost systems might be overburdened and conflicts might take an inordinate amount of time to resolve. So, what are some alternatives to the official legal system? Legal pluralism establishes that “lawyerly law” is not the only form used by local place-based cultures to resolve disputes. Compadre and comadre networks have long played this role informally and it may be possible to establish a system similar to the acequia in which a mayordomo (or section representative in this case) serves as the mediator. The resolution of conflict within the informal channels of the community is the preferred form that emphasizes local control and autonomy and signals a willingness to forego turning to more formal state and administrative systems.

7.    Minimal regulation of rights to organize: This principle might be problematic in this case due to the overlap of rights pertaining to the “private owners,” use rights holders, owners/developers of adjacent properties, and the continuing interests of the state through the supervisory court system overseeing implementation of use rights and management practices. One issue is determining which of the stakeholder groups (private owners, use rights holders, or the state) will have ultimate or overlapping authority to set policies on matters such as controlling the large elk population on the land grant. Elk compete with livestock for forage and, since the granting of elk hunting licenses is an important source of state revenue, the association may encounter opposition in efforts to control the elk population. There are also continuing equity questions of subsistence hunting rights that were not granted under the terms of the 2002 court decision. The association might develop an annual conference to address these issues in an on-going and highly adaptive manner.

8.    Nested enterprises: In this context, the nesting together of different user groups (grazers, wood gatherers, herb and berry harvesters, etc.) in the association is critical to establish countervailing influences and to promote participation of households across all the villages and including both genders.

Research on the commons includes numerous cases where the community of use rights holders encounters and resolves a similar set of problems. These obstacles and contradictions can be overcome but it takes a concerted effort by all stakeholders to respect the historic community and its own sense of place and understanding of the "original instructions."

In subsequent blogs we will examine this issue and provide some preliminary comments on the changing land and water ethics of the Rio Culebra acequia communities. There are numerous difficulties posed to the survival of the ethics that sustain a sense of obligation to follow the original instructions. These include the effects of a deep history of environmental injustice and racism experienced by the land grant community of the Culebra watershed. This requires that we also examine the environmental history and political ecology of the bioregion. In our next blog entry in this series, we will turn to an examination of the environmental history of La Sierra.