It’s common knowledge that the majority of farm laborers in the United States are undocumented immigrants. Less commonly known is the fact that migrant labor has been on a steady decline.
Currently, some 250,000 Californians in the San Joaquin and Salinas Valleys have nitrate contamination issues, according to a study released by UC Davis last spring. Compounding the problem, these communities are some of the poorest in our state.
The fiscal cliff wasn’t the only cliff that threatened the nation’s economic balance to start the year. Elected officials in Washington were also grappling with how to keep the nation from going headfirst off the dairy cliff.
In effect, the sentiment can be surmised as one of pleasant surprise, somewhere along the lines of “wow, I’m sure glad I didn’t place a bet on that one.”
Best known for producing olives, Lindsay is a small town in the southern San Joaquin Valley that is receiving national attention for its progressive education system.
We dug around on the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) website and observed a few interesting trends that made us think in broader strokes about the notion of transparency. Law dictates that campaigns hold up their end of the bargain by making this data available, but outside of some local reporters, who is actually using it? It is our right, afterall, as citizens, to do so.