Only a Federal Job Guarantee can solve for sustainable agriculture

One expedient way of making the Job Guarantee a reality is to connect job creation to environmental conservation and other social care needs. As I have argued elsewhere 18 , the Job Guarantee is inherently a green policy, not only because of its organic connection with the climate conservation movement, but also because it remedies the neglect and squander that come with economic distress, unemployment, and precarious work. Arguably a green policy is one that aims to address all forms of waste and devastation, including both natural and human resources. The Job Guarantee is also part of the US Green New Deal Resolutions, which recognizes that environmental justice cannot be delivered without economic and social justice. Although the Job Guarantee predates the Green New Deal movement, it has always been green in practical terms too – from the days of Roosevelt’s Tree Army to modern proposals like the one outlined here – prioritizing environmental conservation and community renewal. The Green New Deal is a comprehensive and ambitious policy strategy designed to transform the economy and deliver a habitable planet to future generations. The Job Guarantee is the bridge in that transition, the safety-net and preventative macroeconomic stabilization policy, which ensures that while we work to protect the environment and transform the economy, we have a policy that protects working people and transforms the work experience itself. The Job Guarantee matches unmet needs with available resources. Because it aims to address the social deprivations of people, communities, and the environment, it is not only a green policy, but can be viewed more broadly as a care policy. Large swaths of the population, even in developed countries, face shortages of vital goods and services. Food deserts, where millions of people lack access to healthy and affordable food, blanket the US. So do medical deserts – nearly a quarter of all residential areas lack acute-care hospitals and 80% of rural areas are designated as medically underserved 19 . This is typical for European nations as well, even though many provide nationalized healthcare. Sustainable agriculture, community health centers, and other basic services are needed even in the wealthiest regions of the world, while in the developing world, these problems are worsened multifold by the lack of basic infrastructure. All the while, the planet is burning. Perennial fires, floods, hurricanes, droughts are intensifying. Air, soil and water pollution are preconditions for the accelerating and at an unprecedented rate of species extinction, according to a recent UN report 20 . Environmental work is endless and urgent. It includes investment and rehabilitation projects that are small and large. The Job Guarantee is one key mechanism for ensuring that the work is being done. A global tree army can repair the lungs of the planet, provide green infrastructure in dense urban areas, and help restore biodiversity. Rural areas can benefit from sustainable agriculture investments, drought prevention, and other public services. The examples are many. Global recycling programs can help save the oceans from plastics and other polluters. The climate crisis is an existential threat to fishing communities that help feed the planet. Meanwhile, mangroves, wetlands, tidal marshes, seagrass, seaweeds sequester carbons effectively and up to five times more than tropical forests 21 . Restoring them is an urgent and labor-intensive task. The Job Guarantee can be a springboard for implementing sustainable fishing and regenerative ocean farming practices. Reef reconstruction and habitat restoration can reverse the impacts of coastal development on coastal marine ecosystems and vulnerable (and often indigenous) communities. Wetlands are natural embankments that often provide better protection than seawalls. Coastal communities often suffer mass unemployment and underemployment. The Job Guarantee would employ the unemployed and underemployed to do these critical tasks. And the program would be well targeted, as coastal communities often have some of the highest unemployment and underemployment rates nationwide. A similar approach would help impoverished rural communities, who have born the ill effects of commercial agriculture. Firm concentration in agriculture (known as Big Ag) has led to some of the most abusive labor market practices of any industry (wage theft, dangerous working conditions, substandard housing for workers) and has consistently produced environmental hazards (methane emissions, water crises, soil erosion), public health concerns (antibiotic resistance, food born illnesses, dwindling nutritional content), and unfair competition wiping out small family farms (raising monopoly pries of patented seed and equipment, while lowering purchase prices for crops and cattle for sale). As noted above, despite the increased agricultural output, food deserts are ubiquitous around the globe. But corporate farms have been especially detrimental for working people. Agriculture has reliably produced some of the most precarious and poorly paid jobs. Big Ag often relies on cheap migrant labor that in many countries is exempt from basic labor protections like minimum wages, work contracts, or collective bargaining. Yet sustainable agriculture is critical from a strategic point of view (communities need to know where their food comes from), from an environmental point of view (sustainable agriculture relies on regenerative farming) and from the point of view of workers (community supported agriculture CSAs create more and better paid local jobs). The Job Guarantee can help multiply CSAs, farm cooperatives, and community garden initiatives. Because it is a program that creates jobs where they are most needed, by focusing on sustainable agriculture, it can be an effective method for wiping out food deserts while creating living wage employment opportunities.