Today I ran across three articles that highlight very different facets of the nation’s farming economy.
The first is a profile of our own Debra Eschmeyer in her local news paper. Deb and her husband are converting a 13 acre farm to organic production.
Meanwhile, the House Agricultural Committee that nominally looks after the interests of the Eschmeyers as farmers is proving to be one of the most serious barriers to a decent climate change bill. The climate change skeptic chair Collin Peterson, joined by all of his democratic colleagues (and presumably all republicans as well) has in his words “thrown down a pitchfork in the sand” to weaken the already anemic Waxman- Markey bill- proving once again that Big Ag ruins everything it touches.
Finally, closer to L.A., there was a heart breaking article in the Times about farmer workers picking grapes in the heat of the Coachella Valley. Adjusted for inflation, their wages are lower today than when the UFW led grape boycotts 40 years ago. Conditions are also abysmal:
Table grapes have been the valley’s biggest crop for more than a century. Each year, some 100 million pounds are picked by an army of laborers during an epic harvest against which the ugly realities of global agribusiness stand in vivid relief.
The work is hard, dirty and dangerous. It begins at dawn when the air is sweet and moist and stretches until mid afternoon, when temperatures can top 120 degrees and the sun feels like a steel-toed boot to the head.
I’m not sure if there’s much that could be said to untangle the complications and contradictions of a food system that simultaneously feeds and inspires; corrupts and pollutes; and hides and exploits the people who work for and oversee it. So I’ll let these links speak for themselves.
Tags: climate change, coachella valley, farm workers, farmers, grapes
