Meatpacking in the Mid-West

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Jun 29 05:10:05 PDT 1999


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Of course, we shouldn't forget about the people who tend & pick those
> vegetables. And organic farming requires more stoop labor than the
> chemical kind.

I have no first-hand knowledge of California, Ariz. etc. big farms, but I did grow up on a fruit farm in southwestern michigan, and if I allowed my memories of the conditions under which berries were picked affect my eating habits -- I certainly would not eat any fruit that could not first be peeled. Peaches of course are brushed to get off the fuzz -- which may also cut down on the effects of deliberate as well as unavoidable sanitary sabotage. Given the general rise in tuberculosis I imagine that every large farm has several tubercular pickers. My grandfather provided handpumped water in the field for his harvesters, but otherwise sanitation measures were to hide behind a bush or something.

Price of life in the occident.

Carrol



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