On Saturday, I drove 10 miles north of Santa Cruz on Highway 1 to Swanton Berry farm. Swanton's farm manager, a former program participant, had said they could use a few extra hands for their peak strawberry harvest. So, four of us ventured up the coast for a square meal, $8/per hour, and an education in the daily reality of manual field labor.
We hit the fields at 10:30am and maneuvered our harvesting carts down the rows until 4pm with a half-hour lunch break. By 12:30pm, with knees and back beginning to express their displeasure, I had established what I thought to be a respectable pace of one flat (12 one pint baskets) per hour. Then the crew arrived. 30 men -- mainly Mexicans and a handful of Salvadorians -- marched onto the field and swept like a wave down the rows. In one hour's time, they had picked the adjecent field clean at a rate of 4 1/2 flats per person per hour. Then they were gone and on to the next field.
Swanton is one of California's oldest organic berry farms. Relative to most farms, they provide their workers with very good compensation: health care, housing, $8-10/hr wages, and overtime pay (after 60 hours). Yet there is no getting around the fact that this is back-breaking work. During picking season, workers spend 60-80 hours per week in the fields. In the winter months, many relocate to the fields in Yuma, Arizona. Job security is very low, and workers spend months and sometimes years away from family.
Cheap labor is the backbone of California agriculture and has deep historical roots. Our present system can essentially be traced to the Spanish period, during which time indigenous peoples were forced to cultivate mission lands. After the precipitous decline in the native population, a long line of impoverished immigrant groups have renewed the labor pool: Chinese, Japanese, Eastern Europeans, Mexicans, Okies, Filipinos, and a second wave of Mexicans (and other Central Americans). This historical background explains in part why California agriculture remains so labor intensive when compared to farming practices in regions like the Midwest, where labor has increasingly been replaced by technology.
In a previous post, I suggested that food should occupy a higher place on our collective priority list and should, by extension, cost more. Just as there are hidden environmental costs in the pursuit of cheaper and cheaper food, there are manifold hidden social costs.
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3 comments:
Chad-u,
My favorite dispatch yet! Well done, very thoughtful. It sounds like you are having such a fruitful experience. Can't wait to come up and pick some more fresh grub.
Could it be possible that the spreading of machine based labour puts this hard pressure on the manual workers? So once they could not keep up with their efficiancy, they would be replaced. What happens then with the workers who rely on manual labour to feed their families? I believe it is necessary to provide work, as long as our society has not established a solid social system, also to decrease hatred and violence caused by poverty. Maybe an increase in the price of manually farmed goods would relieve some of the pressure, again combined with education and information. A healthy environment also includes happy and content people, for the benefit of all.
maybe by the end of the program you will move from 1 flat per hour up to 3-4 flats per hour! From reading, I'm glad that you are growing in your knowledge and love of the land given to us. I'm sure there are many things WE can do to help on a day to day basis and I would like to help...
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