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Employing the case of the expansion and regulation of hog confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) in Texas combined with the actions of the transnational agri-food corporation Seaboard Farms, Inc., this paper probes the relationship between the state and corporations in the global era. It specifically investigates the ability of the state to control agri-food corporations in a context in which the hyper-mobility of capital has increasingly allowed corporations to by-pass state regulations and requirements. Salient literature is reviewed by grouping it into three camps: the first views the state as largely controlled by corporations; the second stresses the powers left to the state and the fact that corporations need state assistance to successfully operate in the current global economy; and the third acknowledges the crisis of the nation-state under globalization but maintains that the state has retained some ability to resist globalization forces. The case study documents the expansion of Seaboard Farms' hog operations in the Panhandle Region of Texas and nearby states and its interaction with local and state governments and agencies. The article indicates that the relationship between transnational corporations and the state is contradictory. Its source rests on the fracture between varying postures maintained by the state and the relatively homogenous behavior of the CAFO corporations. The case also reveals that the state's limited control of corporate actions is facilitated by state strategies; that corporate actions are successful if corporations enlist the cooperation of the state; and the state is able to control resistance and legitimize its actions to its constituencies. These conditions, however, do not prevent the emergence of anti-corporate resistance at local and state levels. In the search for new forms of socioeconomic development, local residents and their leaders should be aware of corporations' ability to affect state action, state postures that favor corporate designs, and the fact that successful opposition to corporate designs can be, and is, carried out.

The need to better understand landlord involvement in decision-making related to pesticide use and water quality issues is evidenced by several trends. These trends include the increasing documentation of water pollution by farm pesticides, the changing characteristics of farm ownership and operator tenure, and evolutions in resource policy and protection planning. This paper utilizes a theoretical approach to the sociology of land tenure to interpret results from an investigation of landlord involvement in environmental decision making regarding pesticide selection on rented land. Eight counties with high susceptibility of water contamination by pesticides were selected for study. Structured, in-person interviews were administered to in-county landlords, and a mail survey was used to poll out-of-county landlords. Results indicate that participation is generally low with very little difference between landlord groups. Renters make most of the organizational and operational decisions on rented farmland. Landlord participation is predominantly based on economic, rather than on social or environmental, factors. Furthermore, while economic variables are important predictors of participation for both groups, gender and social ties to the renter tend to increase local landlord involvement, but not absentee involvement. These results have important implications for both federal programs and further research on land tenure and environmental stewardship

This article addresses farmers' decisions to try using banded herbicide applications as well as factors that affect whether or not trial attempts are then extended to regular usage. The data is drawn from a total of 722 person-to-person interviews held in 16 Missouri counties, including 75 longer semi-structured interviews within three watersheds. The group of farmers who have tried banding operate significantly larger corn and soybean acreages, and have statistically higher levels of gross sales, education, knowledge of pesticides, and ability to apply their own chemicals. Logistic regression analysis suggests college education, certification as a private applicator, and gross sales as the three variables most likely to predict experimentation. Maintenance of the practice following initial use, however, is negatively related to farm size, and positively related only to gross sales and certification. Logistic regression analysis suggests only gross sales as significantly increasing the odds of adoption. The qualitative research reveals that obstacles with adoption for trial users center largely around difficulties of locating custom applicators for banding, the time and labor required for cultivation, and the ripple effects of banding-related tasks on other aspects of operator farming systems. In essence, banding satisfies farmers' desires to reduce pesticide use and protect water quality, but as a practice it is very difficult to incorporate into individual farming systems.

This study compares the amount of time dual-career husbands and wives spend in housework, relative to their same-sex counterparts in other dual-earner and single-earner households. Data on 1,565 white couples drawn from the 1976 wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics were entered into a multiple regression analysis of husbands' and wives' weekly hours of housework. Across couple types, wives spent considerably more hours in housework than husbands and performed about 79% of all the housework that was done in their homes. Dual-career wives performed significantly fewer hours of housework each week than did full-time housewives, but they did not differ significantly from other full-time employed wives. Dual-career husbands only differed significantly in their household labor from nonprofessional or nonmanagerial husbands of full-time housewives. They did not allocate significantly more time to housework each week than professional or managerial husbands married to housewives or than husbands in other dual-earner families in which the wives had nonprofessional/nonmanagerial jobs. Dual-career couples were not found to be more egalitarian than other couples in their allocation of time to household labor. Consequences of these findings for the extent of viability of the dual-career family form are discussed.