Estabrook presents a critical look at the US tomato industry, particularly the agribusiness in Florida, where most of the US winter grown tomato crop comes from. Tomatos are among the bottom of fruit and veg for taste. The book offers a few possible reasons - tomatos bred for shelf life over taste, the diminishing genetic diversity among varieties out on the market. Most of that is fairly common among agriculture - bananas around the world, for example, are all the same clone species. It was interesting to read of field expeditions to find wild tomato plants in South America and to read of the history of the tomato species. To think that we'd never eat the fruit if one or two key people didn't persist in growing them from the rather inedible ancestors!
There's a lot to be said about the big agriculture industry and overuse of pesticide and fertilizer, but many other organic-local-sustainable ag advocates have already covered this issue. What makes this book different from the rest is its coverage of the huge labor abuses occurring in the industry. If you think that slavery is dead and gone in the US, think again, only this time replace Africans with Latinos. Many agricultural workers are treated like slaves - trucked out from south of the border, tricked into job contracts they can't read, and then told they have to stay to work off their "debt" for the ride up and the crappy housing. If they try to leave their establishments, they get beaten, threatened, chained to posts, and on and on. What's even more chilling is that the few legal cases against these labor abuses happened within the last 2 years and they've barely made a dent in how agribusiness operates. Workers still use the most dangerous and carcinogenetic pesticides and herbicides on these plants without any basic protection. Many still have no healthcare, no minimum hourly wage (paid by the amount picked instead, which hugely depends on how close you are to the truck), no compensation for waiting times, no decent housing. I find it frustrating and aggravating that the state government would turn a blind eye to this and offer lackluster enforcement of existing laws against such abuses. Not only do we not treat the people who pick our food right, but we also suffer from eating tasteless food.
The only criticism I have of the book is that a good few portions were repeated several times, almost phrase for phrase. But other than that, I think the book offered a fresh look at agriculture, tomatos, and labor. Definitely worth the read!
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