The twenty-first century tomato: consistently firm, consistently flavorless, consistently consumed. It’s the go-to food for that pop of red you need in your salad or the slice of color to brighten up your burger, but at what cost do we continue to stock this “vegetable” on our grocery store shelves year-round? Maybe it’s the status that comes with purchasing a summer product in the middle of winter, or maybe it’s the combination of habit and ignorance that work to eternalize the place of the tomato on our grocery lists. Whatever it is that drives us to purchase the industrially produced versions of this crop, it is not flavor; it is not pleasure.
The workings of our current food system illustrate the ways in which we value access to and availability of food more than the wellbeing of the individuals who produce it.1 This attitude towards food relates to the “lines of logic that fetishize the commoditization of food for profit.” (Agyeman, McEntee 211). In a world where economic gains (such as GDP and GNP) are used to measure success and prosperity, we have failed to see just how poor we really are when it comes to our food and its production. In viewing food solely as a commodity (Agyeman, McEntree 211), we remain blind to the social and cultural aspects that make up so much of our food system. This is especially problematic given that, “for most people, the identity of food is masked until it appears in a highly managed form on the supermarket shelf” (Agyeman, McEntee 215). With this view of food, it is not only the ingredients and processing that remain a mystery, but also the labor that is involved in production.
According to the Food Chain Workers Alliance, zero percent of agricultural workers receive a living wage (Ammons 10), and Lappé lists the average life expectancy of a farmer in the United States to be forty-nine years (1). What if the flamboyance of labels advertising low fat, natural, and organic products was also used to identify labor? Just as the packaging of Pop Tarts advertises the stale pastries as a “good source of fiber,” and Lay’s potato chips are “Light,” our food could also have bright colored banners to identify the amount of labor that was involved in its production. For example, the sticker on a Florida tomato would read, “harvested with 100% slave labor.” Similar to the way in which rBGH in milk was brought to consumers’ attention through the labeling of dairy products, we must bring attention to the people who hand pick our fruits and vegetables, so that our eating and food purchasing habits can be shaken by the unappetizing reality of our food system.
1 Read Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland for further details and exemplification of the slavery present in the 21st century food system.
I laughed….I cried….I think you are making some great connections!
I was really struck by your comment on the food labeling we see today in grocery stores and what it could become to include information about workers. You post made me explore the possibility of how adding information about labor could be the next step to spreading awareness to assure everyone gets paid a living wage and works in fair conditions. The labels we currently have take into account chemicals and animals, though never include any information about the workers. If policy required all food products to include a section about their workers pay and conditions consumer habits would definitely change. This solution would encourage widespread awareness about working conditions and pay, as well as force economic and political change. Labeling foods with organic and “GMO free” has already proven to affect consumer’s decision making in grocery stores, why not add in another element! The untold narrative of workers in our food system must be shared with everyone who engages in our food system.