But bit by bit things have improved some, a story thats told in detail and with insight and compassion by Barry Estabrook in his new book, Tomatoland. We can actually help them improve further.
A third of our tomatoes are grown in Florida, and much of that production is concentrated around Immokalee , a town that sits near the edge of the great river of grass, or the Everglades, the draining of which began in the late 19th century, thus setting the stage for industrial agriculture. Immokalee is a poor , immigrant working town, to the outsider at least a depressing community with few signs of hope.
The tomato fields of Immokalee are vast and surreal. An unplanted field looks like a lousy beach: the soil, which is white sand, contains little in the way of nutrients and wont hold any water. To grow tomatoes there requires mind-boggling amounts of fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides . The tomatoes are, in effect, grown hydroponically, and the sand seems useful mostly as a medium for holding stakes in place.
Most of the big purchasers, like Wal-Mart and McDonalds, want firm, slicing tomatoes, because their destination is a burger or a sandwich, so the tomatoes are picked at what is called mature green, which isnt mature at all but bordering on it. Tomatoes with any color other than green are too ripe to ship, and left to rot; Ive posted a couple of pictures I took of those on my blog. The green tomatoes are gassed de-greened is the chosen euphemism to ripen them; the plants themselves are often killed with an herbicide to hasten their demise and get ready for the next crop.
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