Research
Dr. Minkoff-Zern is currently involved in multiple research projects. Her recent book, Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain (UC Press 2025), co-authored with Teresa Mares, looks at labor across food sectors, exploring at the intersections between social movements in United States food systems and labor organizing. Will Work For Food is a necessary recognition and exploration of the labor across the food chain, from farms to food processing and into the home. In the first book to chronicle labor all the way through the food chain, Mares and Minkoff-Zern include two aspects of food labor often excluded from scholarship: food work in the home and management of food waste.
She is also working on a project looking at US Food Policy Councils and their engagement with frontline food labor advocacy work, funded by the Lender Center for Social Justice. Finally, she is conducting new research on the impact of recent immigration enforcement and tactics on the agricultural and food processing workforce and food system in the Northeast United States.
Previous Research
In her first book, The New American Farmer: Immigration, Race, and the Struggle for Sustainability (MIT Press 2019), Minkoff-Zern explores the experiences of Latino/immigrant farmers as they transition from farmworkers to farm owners, offering a new perspective on racial inequity and sustainable farming. She argues that immigrant farmers, with their knowledge and experience of alternative farming practices, are—despite a range of challenges—actively and substantially contributing to the movement for an ecological and sustainable food system. This book is the culmination of over eight years of research across five regions of the United States.
Other previous research looks at the labor and health conditions of government-contracted (H-2A) guestworkers workers in U.S. agriculture. This project is a mixed-method collaboration with scholars from Syracuse and Cornell Universities from Public Health Economics and Rural Sociology. Combining in-depth interviews with quantitative analysis of government data, this project investigates the conditions and experiences of agricultural guestworkers, as well as farmers, who use the program throughout the Northeast region. In a second project, she collaborated with colleagues in the departments of Public Health and Marriage and Family Therapy, looking at refugee gardening, mental health, and food sovereignty. This study advanced understandings of gardening as a moderator for reducing racial and ethnic health disparities, particularly among those who have been subjected to systemic violence or trauma.
Recent Publications
Books
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2025. Minkoff-Zern, Laura-Anne and Mares, Teresa. Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain. University of California Press.
Peer Reviewed Articles in Professional Journals
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Edited Book Chapters
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2024. Mares, Teresa and Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern. “Worker Driven Social Responsibility in the Food System.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Food Studies. Oxford University Press.
Book Reviews
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2020. Minkoff-Zern, Laura-Anne. A Review of “Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry.” Gastronomica: The Journal for Food Studies. Vol 20 (2): 112–113.
Policy Briefs/ Other Publications
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2025. Minkoff-Zern, Laura-Anne and Mares, Teresa. “How Immigrant Workers Hold up the Food System.” University of California Press Blog Guest Post.
2007. Gillon, Sean, Minkoff, Laura-Anne, and Thistlethwaite, Rebecca. “Grounding Ourselves: Innovative Land Tenure Models in California and Beyond.” California Food and Justice Network Working Paper. Community Food Security Coalition. Reprinted 2008. In Farmer’s Guide to Securing Land. Sebastopol, California: California Farmlink.
2004. Minkoff, Laura-Anne. Local and Alternative Practices for Soil Fertility in San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala. Resource document for The Mesoamerican Institute for Permaculture (I.M.A.P.), San Lucas Tolimán, Guatemala.
2004. Minkoff, Laura-Anne. Land Ownership in Guatemala. Resource document for The Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (N.I.S.G.U.A.), Washington D.C.