Analyze

California’s Central Valley is arguably the most productive agricultural region in the world. Despite making up only 1% of all farmland in the United States, it produces 250 different crops that make up a quarter of all food consumed in the U.S., including close to half of all fruit, nuts, and table foods. The map included below shows the variety and intensity of this kind of cultivation. This level of agricultural production has been made possible by the dominance of industrial agriculture interests at all levels of government, resulting in one of the most physically altered landscapes in the world. These alterations focused in large part on water, the biggest limiting factor for industrial agriculture in a region technically classified as a desert. Over the course of the 20th century, the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi–Tulare Lake–was drained to make more land available, the Central Valley Project and State Water Project built thousands of miles of canals and tens of dams to control the supply of water for irrigation, and massive groundwater aquifers were pumped nearly dry during drought years. These transformations were accomplished through the utilization of rhetoric that emphasizes the centrality of the farmer identity to the American political imaginary (despite the massive distance between Californian industrial agriculture and the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal) and the unique importance of providing the nation’s food. This kind of exceptionalism has characterized agriculture across the United States since its inception and has repeatedly produced other forms of social injustice (e.g., the exclusion of agricultural laborers from U.S. labor protections) that compound the hazardous effects of its environmental injustices.

Source

Vo, Katie, Taranjot Bhari and Margaret Tebbe. 2023. Industrial Agriculture in California's Central Valley. In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

California’s Central Valley is arguably the most productive agricultural region in the world. Despite making up only 1% of all farmland in the United States, it produces 250 different crops that make up a quarter of all food consumed in the U.S., including close to half of all fruit, nuts, and table foods. The map included below shows the variety and intensity of this kind of cultivation. This level of agricultural production has been made possible by the dominance of industrial agriculture interests at all levels of government, resulting in one of the most physically altered landscapes in the world. These alterations focused in large part on water, the biggest limiting factor for industrial agriculture in a region technically classified as a desert. Over the course of the 20th century, the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi–Tulare Lake–was drained to make more land available, the Central Valley Project and State Water Project built thousands of miles of canals and tens of dams to control the supply of water for irrigation, and massive groundwater aquifers were pumped nearly dry during drought years. These transformations were accomplished through the utilization of rhetoric that emphasizes the centrality of the farmer identity to the American political imaginary (despite the massive distance between Californian industrial agriculture and the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal) and the unique importance of providing the nation’s food. This kind of exceptionalism has characterized agriculture across the United States since its inception and has repeatedly produced other forms of social injustice (e.g., the exclusion of agricultural laborers from U.S. labor protections) that compound the hazardous effects of its environmental injustices.

Vo, Katie, Taranjot Bhari and Margaret Tebbe. 2023. "Industrial Agriculture in California's Central Valley." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

Rikers is not safe for inmates due to a varitey of factors, for example, the CO2 emissions, the extreme heat, flooding, the emissions from the landfill, the narrow road that doesn't always allow ambulances to pass. The stench is also disgusting. There are arguments for the closing of the jail and improvemements to how money is spent within society, as well as "efforts" to improve the condition of the jails.

Interviews were conducted with inmates and politicians.

NYC Dept of Correction,

Legal Aid Society,

Susi Vassallo - monitored temperatures on Rikers Island,

Rikers,

Hailey-Means, Freddie McGrier (both inmates)

The health of the inmates is in serious jeopardy and there was in instance in which an ambulance was unable to get to the island, which resulted in a death. There are also a lot of suicide attempts so that should be a warning to someone.

"'Sometimes [the detainees] tell [the guards], 'we not locking in becuase its too hot,' Jackson says. Such refusal has often meant calling in the Emergency Services Unit, the jail version of a riot squad. REferred to as 'the turtles' by some detainees, the ESU is known to use extreme force when bringing people back to their cells"

Researchers used personal anecdotes of two individuals who, were locked up in Rikers in order to provided a personal view of the conditions of the facilities. The other data was collected from multiple agency's and law firms that have gather data to make a case for either the closing or improvement of Rikers.  

The main point of this article is to point out the flaws in the capabilities and living areas provided by Rikers island correctional facility. The article is discussing the flaws behind the current standards set at Rikers, and how the facilities downfall are placing the health of the inmates at risk for basically everything up to death. They talk about many of the issues that face individuals including flooding, water outages, and even unintentional extended stays because of unusually high jail bail. They discuss the reforms and possible closeature of the facilities, and how it would affect the population.

This article discusses the health and living inequalities faced by individuals housed in Rikers correctional facilities. It discusses that when individuals are housed there they live in subpar conditions with very little representation in legislature. The infrastructure is crumbling and residences prone to flooding. It also touches on the life lived by post-incarceration individiuals. The end tells of the hardships faced by those because it leaves them without a steady home, very little financial assistance, and a sense of self destruction.