Latest news with #Tate
NZ Herald
a day ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
US farmers fear Trump immigration crackdown threatens food security
'There's a whole food chain involved,' from field workers to truck drivers to people working in packing houses and in sales. 'It's just, everybody's scared,' she said - even a multi-generational American like her. 'I'm nervous and I'm scared, because we're feeling like we're being attacked.' Other farmers contacted by AFP declined to speak to the media, saying they feared potential reprisals from the Trump administration. Worker shortages The agricultural sector has for years been trying to find permanent solutions for its perennial labour shortages, beyond issuing temporary permits for migrant workers. 'Some of the work we have is seasonal,' Tate says. 'But really, around here, we need workers that are year-round.' The number of government-certified positions for temporary agricultural workers practically tripled between 2014 and 2024, Department of Labour statistics show, underlining just how much American agriculture depends on foreign workers. On top of that, some 42% of farm workers are not authorised to work in the United States, according to a 2022 study by the Department of Agriculture. Those numbers line up with the struggles many farmers go through to find labour. They say US citizens are not interested in the physically demanding work, with its long days under extreme temperatures, rain and sun. Against that backdrop, Tate warns that removing people who are actually doing the work will cause immeasurable damage. Not only will it harm farms and ranches, which could take years to recover, it will also send food prices soaring, and even endanger US food security, possibly requiring the country to start importing provisions that may previously have been grown at home, she says. 'What we really need is some legislation that has the type of programme that we need, and that works for both the workers, that ensures their safety, it ensures a fair playing field when it comes to international trade, as well as domestic needs,' Tate said. 'Everyone loses' Some farmworkers agreed to speak to AFP on condition of not being fully identified, for fear of being arrested. 'All we do is work,' a worker named Silvia told AFP. She saw several friends arrested in a raid in Oxnard, about 16km west of Ventura. The 32-year-old Mexican lives in constant fear that she will be the next one picked up and, in the end, separated from her two US-born daughters. 'We're between a rock and a hard place. 'If we don't work, how will we pay our bills? 'And if we go out, we run the risk of running into them,' she said, referring to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. 'The way the government is working right now, everybody loses,' said Miguel, who has been working in the fields of southern California for three decades. The 54-year-old said that workers are losing jobs, farm owners are losing their labour, and as a result, the United States is losing its food. Miguel has worked in various agriculture sector jobs, including during the Covid-19 pandemic. All of them were 'very hard jobs,' he said. Now he feels like he has a target on his back. 'They should do a little research so they understand. The food they eat comes from the fields, right?' he said. 'So it would be good if they were more aware, and gave us an opportunity to contribute positively, and not send us into hiding.' - Agence France-Presse
The Sun
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Sun
Trump immigration raids risk US food security, California farmers warn
VENTURA: Farmers in California's agricultural heartland are raising alarms over former President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, warning it could devastate the US food supply chain. Lisa Tate, a fourth-generation farmer in Ventura County, says raids targeting undocumented workers threaten to 'dismantle the whole economy' and push food prices higher. Tate, who grows avocados, citrus, and coffee, described seeing border patrol agents entering farms unannounced, chasing workers. 'That's not something we're used to in agriculture,' she said. The labour shortage, already severe, could worsen if raids continue, disrupting not just harvesting but the entire food chain—from field workers to truck drivers and packing houses. Government data shows the US agriculture sector relies heavily on foreign labor, with temporary work permits nearly tripling between 2014 and 2024. An estimated 42% of farmworkers lack legal status, according to a 2022 USDA study. Farmers say Americans rarely take these grueling jobs, which involve long hours in extreme weather. Tate warns that removing workers will damage farms, spike food costs, and force the US to import crops it once grew domestically. 'What we need is legislation that ensures worker safety and a fair system for trade and labor,' she said. Undocumented workers, fearing arrest, shared their struggles anonymously. Silvia, a 32-year-old Mexican laborer, saw friends detained in Oxnard raids. 'If we don't work, how will we pay bills? If we go out, we risk ICE,' she said. Miguel, a 54-year-old field worker, added, 'The way the government is working, everybody loses.' Farmers and workers alike urge policymakers to recognize their role in food security. 'The food they eat comes from the fields,' Miguel said. 'Give us a chance to contribute, not hide.' - AFP
Time Out
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Out
London's Tate Modern will stay open later on Fridays and Saturdays
It can be easy to pooh-pooh Gen Zs. People say they are flaky, lack basic social skills, film themselves too much in public, and that they all do the ' Gen Z stare ', whatever that means. But then every now and again some news will come along to shut-up the Gen Z detractors and restore faith in younger generations. Tate Modern has announced it will stay open later on Fridays and Saturdays from autumn, thanks to the record numbers of young people who attended Tate Late events in 2025. We love to see it. From September 26, Tate Modern will stay open until 9pm every Friday and Saturday, offering visitors the chance to see the museum's free collections and paid exhibitions into the evening. Tate said this decision was made after unprecedented numbers of visitors attended Tate Modern's 25th birthday weekend in May this year. The museum said that 76,000 people visited to the gallery over three days, 70 percent of whom were under 35. As well as the weekly later opening hours, the modern art museum will continue hosting its popular Tate Lates at the end of each month. Previous Lates have have been curated by Little Simz, hosted Aphex Twin listening sessions, and seen live performances by musical artists like Celeste. About the Tate's new late opening hours, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: 'Tate Modern has transformed London's cultural landscape, and I'm thrilled the museum will now stay open later every Friday and Saturday, giving even more Londoners and visitors the chance to enjoy world-class art after hours. 'London is the cultural capital of the world and the greatest city on earth – with the best nightlife anywhere. From museums and music venues to late-night galleries and grassroots spaces, there's no better place to enjoy a great night out. That's why we're doing everything we can to support our night-time economy and make sure everyone can enjoy what our amazing city has to offer.'
Scoop
4 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
Cutting Vital $201m Water Works Programme In Half The Trade-Off To Deliver Affordable Water Rates
Central Hawke's Bay District Council's considering halving $201m of essential work on its water infrastructure as a trade-off to make rates more affordable. Central Hawke's Bay's water rates were forecasted to double by 2034 under modelling completed to comply with the Government's Local Water Done Well framework. The framework does not provide a clear pathway to address affordability in small rural communities, like Central Hawke's Bay. In Central Hawke's Bay we've chosen to address the affordability challenges many rural communities are facing by substantially reducing our district's capital works programme, said Central Hawke's Bay District Council Chief Executive Doug Tate. 'Our aim is to create more affordable Three Waters rates. However, it has the potential to create the opposite and erode the positive progress we've made in addressing historic underinvestment in our water assets," said Tate. The approach to reduce the district's Three Waters programme would be further developed by officers before being presented to Council for endorsement at its 21 August Finance, Infrastructure and Performance Committee meeting. 'There are both benefits and risks to the decisions facing us, but we're stepping up and providing a pragmatic option,' Central Hawke's Bay Mayor Alex Walker said. 'We know we need the entire $201m capital works programme but we're faced with a situation where we have to move.' The current water investment plan was developed for the 2021 Long-Term Plan as a short-term bubble of catch-up. Council has achieved a lot of what was needed in terms of leak reductions and critical renewals. This includes renewing 10.4 kilometres of water pipes, making major upgrades in water treatment in Takapau, Kairakau, Pōrangahau and reduced network leaks three –fold. NOTES TO EDITOR Early scenario modelling of trade-offs is on page 11 of this report The international affordability benchmark for drinking water puts it in the range of 3% - 5% of median income. Central Hawke's Bay's median household income is currently $89,000.
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Andy Goldsworthy: Britain's most misunderstood artist gets his due
Keep out! That, seemingly, is the unfriendly message conveyed at the start of this centrepiece of the Edinburgh Art Festival, a stunning retrospective of ceaselessly inventive work by the 68-year-old British artist Andy Goldsworthy, who, despite the public's adoration, is still undervalued by the art establishment in this country. An impenetrable screen of rusty barbed wire, like a rampant and malignant thorn bush, twisted around and between a pair of imposing columns, impedes progress into the galleries of Edinburgh's Royal Scottish Academy. Don't be deterred. Far from acting as a barrier, Fence (2025) – as this installation is called – elicits our engagement by confounding expectations. It's 50 years since Goldsworthy – the son of a mathematics professor who spent much of his teens working formatively as a farmhand – enrolled as an art student, not at one of London's fashionable colleges, but in Lancashire, at Preston Poly. Ever since, this former motorcycle gang member, with a hazy tattoo of Elvis Presley on his forearm, has remained apart from the metropolitan art world. 'I'm an outsider in every respect,' he told me defiantly this week. (The Tate owns next to nothing by him.) It probably didn't help that, during the 1980s, Goldsworthy's art was featured on Blue Peter. Typically, his work takes one of two forms: large, site-specific installations in the great outdoors (involving, say, cairns and arches or surreal, switch-backing dry-stone walls), or ephemeral interventions also in natural settings that, before they disappear, are photographed for posterity. Examples of the latter, inside the exhibition, include photographs of a beach-ball-like clump of yellowing leaves, and a black-and-white zig-zag fashioned from the split feathers of a dead heron. The trouble is, these photographs are often too lyrical and pleasing to the eye for Goldsworthy's own good, and there's a perception that – compared with the supposedly tougher conceptual output of other British Land artists such as Hamish Fulton or Richard Long – his imagery is mindlessly bucolic. This is unfair, as Fence – like the wider show – insists. Goldsworthy's first big British exhibition since one at Yorkshire Sculpture Park almost two decades ago reveals him to be a prickly, obsessive artist capable of evoking difficulty as much as delicate beauty – as befits his vision of the land that, for decades, has inspired him. Cracks and fissures abound in his work, which is also preoccupied with walls and fences, and confronts contentious rural issues, including land ownership and access. Unlike, say, Long, whose subject is the wilderness (and despite having worked at the North Pole), Goldsworthy is an artist of agricultural land and labour – who has also, surprisingly frequently for someone so associated with nature, made art in cities. He's unafraid, too, to tackle lofty themes. In an early gallery, here, he presents Skylight (2025), an enfolding, chapel-like installation of cascading (or ascending?) interlocking bulrushes gathered from lochs, illuminated only by daylight from a grimy aperture above. Nearby, he lays out a companion piece, Gravestones (2025), an expanse of lumpy stones of various sizes displaced, during burials, from more than a hundred graveyards in Dumfries and Galloway, where he's lived since 1985. The former seems to levitate, and evoke the heavens and ethereal things; the latter, ponderous and apparently immovable, speaks of the inevitability of death, and – also naturally lit – should be especially gloomy come the show's end, in November. 'Of course, the land can be tranquil,' Goldsworthy says, while finishing an installation of battered work gloves pinned to a board within a stairwell recess. 'But it's also tough, difficult, challenging, brutal, and gory.' The same could be said, surprisingly, of his art, which is both beautiful and raw. Runs from 26 July until 2 November; tickets:
