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Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit (2011)

by Barry Estabrook(Favorite Author)

3.92 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1449401090 (ISBN13: 9781449401092)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Andrews McMeel Publishing

review 1: Well documented and revealing look at modern agriculture practices that have been applied over the last 50+ years in the US. We have all paid a tremendous price for "food perfection" which amounts to abundance, uniformity, and cheapness. Be careful of what you ask for! We now have shelves full of "perfect produce" that is tasteless, full of chemicals, and left growers and consumers sick. Hopefully, through information such as this book, we are awakening from our slumber of thinking all is well down on the farm and we have attained "Better Living Through Chemistry". A must read if you care about the working farm forces and your own health!
review 2: One has to be in a certain kind of mood to select a book about a vegetable -- I mean, fruit -- from the library. L... moreuckily, I was in just such a mood when I went to search for a new book last week.The reviews I'd read featured clichés about turning a seemingly droll subject into an adventure. That's perhaps a little overwrought, but the book is a captivating read. If I went in thinking "How could someone write an entire book about tomatoes?", I finished it thinking "Of course tomatoes are worth an entire book."Estabrook himself is an interesting hybrid -- a food writer/investigative reporter. Given today's industrial food system, that's a productive mix. The book explores how Florida's winter tomato industry produces tasteless tomatoes and sometimes exploits its mostly migrant workforce. Estabrook uncovers farms that expose workers to unsafe levels of pesticides and in rare cases keep their workers in indentured servitude as modern-day slaves. Actually, though, "uncover" might not be right verb. Most of what Estabrook writes about is either an open secret or hidden in plain sight. For instance, I already knew that tomatoes from industrial farms were typically picked while still green, then "ripened" using a certain gas. But the book expands on that knowledge, folding that fact into a larger system based on producing identical red orbs that look like the perfect tomato, but taste like... not much. I also already knew that modern-day slavery exists, but Estabrook explains how it happens. It's difficult to conceive of how people could be bought and sold, and how people would accept being kept as property. But Estabrook shows real-life examples of migrants being sold, and documents how the predatory use of debt can quickly swipe freedom from immigrant laborers.The labor abuses Estabrook documents mostly became known due to the work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an advocacy group that functions almost like a union for Florida's tomato-pickers. The group has helped bring criminal cases against human traffickers and launched a high-profile campaign to get restaurants and grocery stores to pay more for their tomatoes, resulting in higher wages for the field workers.It's an important story, and it's well-told in "Tomatoland." The book is a quick read with a matter-of-fact tone. Estabrook has no ax to grind against the Florida tomato industry. He simply wants respect -- both for the workers in the tomato fields, and for the tomatoes themselves. Indeed, his main beef with regard to the plant is that farmers have totally set aside taste in their quest for efficiency. Estabrook hopes to see taste return as an important factor, something scientists and horticulturalists are working on. Perhaps it will only happen, though, if consumers refuse to buy tasteless tomatoes. less

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