towards more elaborate processing and packaging for all crops, including grain-based and meat products, creates continuing strong demand for workers in these agricultur­ally based industries. Organic and alternative agricultural practices also typically increase labor demand. The strength of the demand for agricultural hired labor in some regions and crops is often disguised by the longer term and more general decline in agriculture overall. Both changing mar­kets and the prospect of climate change will create new needs for knowledge and skills in the agricultural labor force. Although the demand for agricultural labor remains strong in much of NAE, research shows that the inequalities created by low-paid farm labor constitute a significant share of overall income inequality in most of NAE (Alderson and Nielsen, 2002; Martin, 2003; ERS, 2007).
     Development and sustainability goals have important and  unresolved implications  for  required improvements in the welfare of agricultural workers and farm families in terms of wages, overall working conditions, health and safety problems, health insurance, job security and housing. Meeting development and sustainability goals also requires that a healthy and stable rural work force be available to agricultural employers.
     Addressing the problems raised by farm labor will re­quire broad public policy initiatives over the long term in farm subsidy programs, immigration law, labor law, health policy, regulatory law, housing policy, regional planning, governmental budgeting and other complex areas. However, existing research indicates that there are measures specifi­cally within the agricultural sector and short of the broader and deeper reforms that are required, that can work to sta­bilize and improve the welfare of farm workers and families, yielding numerous advantages to society and the environ­ment. The applicability of such measures will obviously vary by region. Among them are (Findeis, 2002; Martin, 2003; Strochlic and Hamerschlag, 2006):
•     Value-added, on-farm activities and product diversifica­tion that allow for a more stable stream of farm and labor income while providing year-round employment, creating incentives for improvement in farm worker skills,   in  turn   improving  worker   productivity   and morale;
•     Frequent consultation with farm workers, their families and rural residents to address both the nature of rural work and worker welfare; and
•     Improved working conditions and higher wages, rec­ognizing these as fundamental to maintaining a stable and skilled work force and often contributing to farm profitability.

Gender issues. The role of gender in North America and Europe is extremely varied from country to country and re­gionally within countries. NAE researchers and institutions have done a great deal of work on gender inequities in ag­riculture outside of NAE, but relatively little attention has been paid to gender issues within NAE agriculture. Discus­sion of gender inequities within families on what has been termed "the discourse of the family farm" initially focused on the masculine dominance of the farm family and inequi­ties of power and welfare as a consequence. Later research

has focused on the recognition and development of more complex familial relationships in terms of ownership, work roles, decision-making and welfare outcomes. In analyzing these more complex relationships researchers have more re­cently seen the way in which women play active roles within the family, more typically working with male family mem­bers to deal with difficulties imposed on the farm enterprise from outside the family structure (Brandth, 2002).
     Gender inequities within the professions of agricultural research, education and extension are striking in much of the region and particularly in the higher reaches of academic research and teaching. Researchers have focused on the fac­tors that lead women to choose other kinds of work and that determine the relative lack of women in agricultural research. Much of this analysis focused on gender inequities within the AKST profession a decade or more ago, setting an agenda for change. There seems to be an opportunity for reassessment of the prevailing situation and of future pros­pects (Van Crowder, 1997; Foster, 2001).
     The last twenty years have seen a striking emphasis within rural and agricultural development work done out­side NAE on gender analysis and appropriate policy re­sponses. Much of this work is performed and/or directed by institutions based in NAE (including the World Bank and NAE national foreign assistance programs). This makes it urgent that gender imbalances among the professionals en­gaged in such work not undermine the quality and effective­ness of research and policy carried on abroad, as well as at home. Farm workers in NAE experience a variety of work situations involving gender that create hazards, inequities and significant stresses (Barndt, 2002; Nevins, 2002; Fox and Rivera-Salgado, 2004; VanWey et al., 2005). Among these are:
•     Legal   and   illegal   immigration   across   international borders often makes it difficult for families to remain together, posing high levels of insecurity and resulting in large economic costs. Most typically, men migrate internationally without their families when there are high risks and/or costs associated with border cross­ing and residence without legal documentation; this is particularly the case for some hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America who work in agriculture in the United States and Canada;
•     Gendered employment patterns, as for example women working in poultry processing plants while men work in slaughterhouses for pigs and beef cattle, often with significant gendered differences in pay and often result­ing in family separation and inequities;
•     sexual harassment  and exploitation  associated with women separated from families by gendered work situ­ations; and
•     Failure to exclude women, pregnant women and chil­dren from farm chemical exposure that have in some cases been shown to pose particular risks to women, fetuses and children. Serious toxicological issues remain in the analysis of this problem and while regulatory schemes in most of NAE have attempted to address the issue, prob­lems of measurement, accountability and enforcement remain (Castorina, 2003; Bradman, 2005, 2007; Young et al., 2005; Eskanazi, 2006; Holland, 2006).