Forbes
By Beth Hoffman
On Saturday, Mark Bittman of the New York Times wrote an interesting article about a trip he took to the Sacramento Valley to witness large scale tomato production.
There he found committed farmers growing tomatoes in a way that tries to ensure the fiscal stability of their farms while also taking care of the land. He visited a processing plant where tomatoes were canned for the likes of Walmart, Safeway, Kroger, and Ralphs. And he talked to union reps who told him that people were paid $17 an hour with benefits. All in all, he determined, “not all industrial food is evil.”
Finally, at the very bottom of the column, Bittman lamented that some of the work he saw also happened to be back breaking, and wished that farmers could be paid more for their produce so that they could pay workers better.
Of course, the comment section was as lively as ever, as readers pointed out every tiny thing Bittman miswrote, including his calculation of the size of the tomato field. But a comment by EricB popped out at me:
What kind of utopian nonsense is this? Is this distant futuristic utopian vision supposed to replace any practice of principle in the real world? Wouldn’t the realist prefer to buy his tomatoes locally from a farmer he trusts (and pays enough) to put principles into practice here and now? Surely only immigrants work all the jobs described. Who here would want any of the jobs described in the article for himself or any of his loved ones?…
Here I think it is critical to clarify one very important point.
While it is nice that the tomato farmers are rotating crops and the union laborers are paid decently, it is inexcusable that Bittman buried at the bottom of his article the fact that farmers are not often paid a fair price for what they produce. It is a problem is endemic in agriculture and, unbeknownst to readers like EricB, hits small farms the hardest.
In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, median farm income was at -$2,799 in 2012.
In 2011 only 53 percent of “intermediate farms” – defined as those with a full time worker – had gross sales more than $10,000. 60 percent of “family farms” had gross sales of less than $10,000.
So EricB and others, don’t think for a moment that just because you buy a product from a farmer (or their representative – not many of them have the time to go to the farmer’s market while farming) that means the system you use is working. Your farmer likely is not able to make a living off her tomatoes any more than the immigrants you describe in your comment – and while it is romantic to think of farmers living off the land, it still needs to be a viable job.
The next time you go to the market ask your farmer how much the tomato you bought really costs. If he or she were actually compensated for their work, if someone in the family did not have to drive an hour each way to their job in town – what then?
