I listened to the guy who wrote that book (expose'). I'll be curious to hear Ralphs take on it. He virtually called the Tomato growers in South Fla ..Slavers. This review is off of Amazon.com
As with anything there is always two sides to any story and truth coming from both sides in the story's being told. South Florida or better yet Immokalee is where the U.S. gets vegetables to eat during the winter. There is probably more cash exchanged on a daily basis then Vegas sees in a week. My first experience of Immokalee is when we would drive from Miami up to Central Florida as a kid and I remember all the drunks walking up and down the streets. There were just so many it was something I had never experienced before and never have since. Later in life I then went to work for Dole fruit company and spent a lot of time in Immokalee. It probably has 90% immigrants of all varieties and 10% white and black for its population. Yes I believe the story's of low wages and there has been slavery there according to the media coverage at times. This includes forced prostitution of young girls and work labor. It is a very rough town with rough people who work and live there. And as a farmer I am sure terrible things have been done in the pursuit of a dollar with the knowledge of management. But with story's like this coming out into the light Immokalee has changed and catching up to modern American. Most of the atrocities are hype and the reason I know this is because I worked some of the people involved and their families. People see an easy way to make money and talking to a lawyer is easier than back breaking work. There are as many lawyers running around looking for cases as there are laborers looking for work. I am ashamed for the travesty's done and want people to understand that no matter the occupation or color of skin each man is equal when he puts his pants on to go to work. I could go on for some time but remember when 90% of the population is not accustomed to our society and culture it always brings a clash of reality to our laws and standards. For many of these workers how we view what is right and wrong is very different from their views. It is hard to change attitudes over night. The slave labor and prostitution I know about has always been setup by other immigrants to make money, not the companies. I had a great family who worked and lived on our property with three beautiful girls, I watched them grow up and my son played with them. When the oldest daughter at age 15 wanted to date a 21 year old her father (my employee) would not let her. She got mad and called the police and explained that her father had sexually abused her for years. When I talked to him and his relatives about this they were stunned at the problem. It was socially acceptable from their rural area of Mexico they were from. I was blown away and shocked as well as saddened. He went to jail and hung himself a week later, leaving those in the wake confused and messed up. Right or wrong has different meanings to different cultures even if I agree or not. My whole point is that changes needed to be made and they have been from the very highest corporate farming operations. Immokalee has improved and now has Ave Maria university just outside the city limits. A beautiful Catholic University that hails itself as the next Notre Dame. This and money shared by Collier County it sits in and houses Naples has changed little old Immokalee into a town with hope and the vegetables you will eat this coming winter. http://www.avemaria.edu/visit/
To follow up with the quality of today's tomatoes they pretty much suck. Tomatoes are picked green and then gassed for color and shipped to the market. Unless you are like me and enjoy fried green tomatoes it had better be marked vine ripe with a piece of the vine on the cluster when you buy it at the store. With the sales force pushing to sell now and our intricate transportation system hauling produce 2,000 miles we honestly do not have produce that can ship that far and taste good at the same time. I recommend everyone buy local if possible if you desire a vine ripe taste. I am surprised they only mentioned 27 insects and 29 diseases, I thought it was much larger... We do farm on beach sand in Florida compared to the rest of the nation. There is zero nutrients in the soil and our beach sand is porous and highly leach-able where nothing stays very long when you put it there. So yes we use fertilizer that is made with mostly natural gas to process the nitrogen. Since we are bottom feeders after corn, soybean, wheat and cotton our prices are related to the acreage of how many acres they plant each year. We use chemicals to keep the bugs and fungus from destroying the plants. Duh, this is what every household uses to keep bugs off their pillows and the local golf courses green. I can tell you sincerely that no farmer wants to use more than they have to, they cost too damn much. My cost just counting fertilizer and pesticides are over one million dollars per year, this used to be the cost of my entire budget 20 years ago. To make everyone feel better the new generation of chemicals used is mostly tabbed organic and nothing as dangerous as we used when I first started farming. My big cost on top of the above mentioned is weed control, with all of our sunshine we do not only grow lots of bugs but weeds that will never end. And the only deformity I have after handling pesticides since I was 15 is the extra arm and three eyes but its normal to me...
My better half introduced me to CSAs this year. We have a half share of local veggies and a half share of local fruits that are picked fresh Thursday morning and delivered to the farmer's dropoff Thursday afternoon. I have absolutely LOVED the fresh fruit and veggies, even compared to one of our local markets that I had previously considered very fresh. mmm
That's interesting... I sell our tree ripe peaches to the local CSA and love their produce and the family that runs it. They are hard workers that have found a niche that is making them wealthy in the process..... The Southerner in me at first thought what is he buying veggies from the Confederate States of America for??? :shock:
LOL No, the Confederate States never had fruit like this! Our fruit CSA is Tagges: http://www.taggesfamousfruit.com/ Last Thursday we had raspberries, blackberries, 2 white peaches, 4 doughnut peaches, 4 brigham city peaches, a seedless watermelon, a canteloupe, a honeydew, 4 cucumbers, 8 sweet corn, 2 zuchini, 1 armenian cucumber, some bell peppers (red, green, and orange). Absolutely fantastic. A few times they have purchased from another local farm to fill in when their crop wasn't ready yet, but I've had very little of the yield turn out bad.
That's quite the hall of produce, yum...I'm curious about the Brigham City peaches I have never heard of those. The raspberries sound good with the blueberries, its making me hungry. Were the doughnut peaches good, they are called flying saucers around here, normally high in sugar content, very sweet.
Brigham City peaches - This area goes back to the days when the Mormons settled the valley (including Brigham City). They were known for their orchards, including many unique varieties of apricots, peaches, pears, cherries, apples, and berries. Back in the day they were also known for their fruit brandies, until Brigham Young put a stop to it since many of his flock couldn't keep the fruits of their labor out of their belly. (It was intended as money-maker to be sold exclusively to the non-believers.) I'm assuming this variety dates back to then, but I really don't know. Doughnut peaches - yes, very high in sugar content. In fact, a little bit of the syrup has been crystallized at the base of the stem on most of the peaches we've received from them. I made a raspberry and blackberry tart this weekend using the berries from the CSA. Along with a jar of raspberry apricot preserves we put up last year from my apricot tree for the glaze, it disappeared with the four of us in grand fashion. I also have a pear tree and have made pear brandy, apricot brandy, and cherry apricot brandy from their fruit.
OK we are going to have to barter some fruit brandy for a case or two of Florida Tangerines or Red grapefruit. I start harvesting one of our tangerine varieties on Wednesday and Red grapefruit about two weeks after that. At the very least email me the brandy recipe I would love to try our spring peaches with this if possible...
No trade necessary. I'll dig some out. I sent some to Scott a couple years ago for Christmas, dunno if he ever finished it off, though. I'll try to find the recipe, too, haven't made it in over a year (no apricots this year, late freeze).
Heard today that the tomato coalition representing the harvesters won a court battle where a grocery chain must pay 2.2 million dollars of lost wages. It seems they promised to pay the $.01 per lb increase to the harvesters and did not follow through. Also heard rumblings where within two years agriculture employees will get paid for overtime. Not sure if anyone outside of agriculture knows this but there is no overtime paid in this occupation. This includes everyone but employees who work in the maintenance of machinery, in other words the mechanic or Maint dept. is and has been eligible for OT. This simple statement has great meaning to affordability. One example I can give is my career. I have worked in Ag since I was 15, working every holiday and weekend and then before or after school and college. I have always worked a 50 hour week, never knowing anything but the fact that a 50 hour week is normal time and anything over this amount is extra. And let me tell you there have been lots of weeks with extra hours. With this knowledge I am currently 47 years old working for the past 32 years in some form or another and have never been paid overtime. Now since I am salary and have been for many years I would not be affected. But if the other 99% of Ag jobs that are hourly suddenly are required to be paid overtime your bananas and canned corn is going to be one third higher in price. I have mixed feelings on this. I have always felt that the fine people who work hard to put food on Americas table no matter the race or nationality deserve the same treatment that other Americans take for granted. But as a business owner and manager I understand this could literally break the companies invested in Ag and bring the cheap affordable food Americans take for granted to an end....
RE: OT I think you'll find your estimates are based on a non-sliding efficiency scale, and will come out actually worse. If someone is on salary, paid 40 hours/week, they're generally going to try to get their job done in as short a time as possible thus freeing up their "unpaid" time for other adventures. On the other hand, if you reward people by paying them MORE for all the hours they work, a 40-hour or 50-hour job could easily turn into a 60-hour job in order to reap the extra 10 hours of pay.
My God if I was paid for every hour I have worked while being paid a salary I would be as wealthy as,as,as Terry!!!! As far as paying MORE for the hours they work I would agree in a short term situation but day in and day out where job performance is judged on a yearly basis the work completed is easily determined if the person is milking the project...
I have been to Immokalee...golfed at Ave Maria then went to the casino to play blackjack. Left late at night and turned left and went towards town because I wanted to have a cup of coffee to drive home with. Stopped at a quick stop/gas station at the edge of town...it was real seedy looking with guys hanging around and I was kind of thinking "bad idea". No coffee there but the guy directed me down the street to the next place...I figured it might not look quite so seedy...it was worse. But nobody harassed me. Apparently Immokalee is the hometown of Edgerrin James.[/quote]