A Commodity Chain
I will examine the importation of tomatoes from Mexico and the social and economic impact it has on the indigenous people involved in its production. I shall also examine the logistics required for it to reach American consumers and the everyday importance of this commodity in the daily lives of Americans.
On a typical shopping trip to my local market I routinely browse the produce section, admiring an abundance of mouth-watering fruits and vegetables. All meticulously arranged in neat pyramids or stacked in perfect rows. While many are labeled as a “foreign variety” and others marketed to certain ethnic immigrants, I have never stopped to consider that the common fruits and vegetables consumed daily may be foreign produced. The face of illegal immigration as represented by the farmworkers in the book “Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States” is what I now envision as the source of my fruits and vegetables.
Sinaloa Mexico is known as the home of the world’s largest and most powerful drug cartel. Sinaloa is also the largest producer and exporter of tomatoes to the United States and Canada. “Half of all Mexican fruit and vegetable exports come from the state of Sinaloa, located in northwestern Mexico. Sinaloa mainly exports in the winter season, primarily vegetables, and fresh market tomatoes are the number one export crop” (Cook). In 2012, “Sinaloa exported 950,000 tons of vegetables, mostly tomatoes and mostly to California and other parts of the United States, worth nearly $1 billion. Half the tomatoes eaten in the United States” during winter months “are from Sinaloa” (Wilkinson).
Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce of San Diego has grown and supplied fruits and vegetables to loca...
... middle of paper ...
...rect part in the migrants suffering by simply initiating a demand for the product at minimum cost.
Looking back at the role tomatoes plays in our daily lives we see that the financial survival of the indigenous migrants of Mexico is tied to the vegetable farms of the United States and Mexico. Their lack of local employment leads to an endless cycle of poverty and pain for them and their children as migrant pickers. As producer, packer and supplier A&W provides the logistics from field to market for total accountability of product quality and cost. We have seen that the tomatoes represent not only an important cash commodity for farmers and retailers, but it’s also one of the most important food staple in our daily meals. The tomato farms of Mexico provides much needed employment for the migrant pickers as well as health issues, low wages, discrimination and poverty.
In the video, “America Revealed: Food Machine,” the host, Yul Kwon, investigated the modern American agricultural industry, with an emphasis upon the contrasts between contemporary farming and the American farming of previous generations. At the start of the program, Mr. Kwon discusses the route of a pizza delivery person in New York City, and he describes the origins of the ingredients of the pizza. To do this, the host travels to California’s Central Valley, a region that was once a desert, but is now the breadbasket of the United States. In this valley, thirteen million tomatoes are grown per year as well as fifty percent of the country’s fruits and nuts. Water is the most expensive resource in this region, as it must travel many miles from
Tomatoland is a book written by Barry Estabrook, an investigative food journalist. Throughout the pages of Tomatoland, Estabrook explores the path of tomatoes, from the seed in South America to the hands of migrant workers in the fields of Florida. Through his exploration he discovers several issues that exist within the fresh tomato industry in Florida. Two of the major issues that he discovers include the use of highly toxic chemicals that cause severe damage to the health of humans and the environment, and the exploitation of migrant workers. Estabrook directly blames the continuation of such issues on those who support the tomato industry, “it’s a world we’ve all made, and one we can fix”; this includes consumers, crew bosses, the government and the corporate farm owners, like the executives and those who work in the business side of farming. Although there are many who are at fault, Estabrook directs his blame more towards the government and the farms corporate owners. Estabrook’s assessment of blame is substantial because the government and owners of the tomato corporations are the ones who have the strongest power towards regulations and production.
The Michoacan state in Mexico has become the world’s largest producer of avocadoes. Although this vegetable is grown on farms throughout this state, it is also tied to an integral network of trade and export to countries across the globe. In this essay, I will argue that like any commodity chain study, the production of the organic Hass avocado has an intricate production process, which for my commodity chain study begins in Uruapan, Mexico a town in the state of Michoacan. This analysis has indicated the crucial underlying links to trade, labour, and demand that the export of this vegetable has created throughout North America and the rest of the world. I hope to establish these links in an attempt to ‘defetishize’ this commodity and bring about the broader and conflicting issues that have resulted between Mexico and nearby countries such as the United States and Canada. I will begin this research by briefly reviewing the actual process and networks that the organic Hass avocado forms from the farms in Uruapan and the path it takes to the grocery stores in Vancouver, Canada. Then look to the implications of NAFTA and other related issues that have affected the trading process of avocadoes and has created severe divisions between the USA and Mexico. I will establish the importance of the organic produce industry and its exports to further developed countries with increasing demand for these organic products. And conclude that the future of the organic produce industry may be struck with ongoing divisions, as it becomes more globalized, between larger organic agricultural firms and smaller organic farmers who rely heavil...
As Americans become more health conscious, their consumption of fruits and vegetables is increased at astronomical levels. Since migrant farm workers are responsible for picking the majority of these products, the eating habits of Americans perpetuate the very farm labor market conditions that many people would like to put an end to. Therefore, whether knowingly or not, Americans are exploiting these Migrant workers who are paid less then minimum wage, have no power to bargain with their employers, and have inadequate and unacceptable living accommodations. In New England, the harvest of blueberries and apples are crucial to the economy, and are in abundant supply. Those who pick these fruits travel across the country, and often across international boarders to fill agricultural jobs that U.S. citizens are not willing to take. Both blueberries and apples are extremely difficult crops to harvest, and require extensive manual labor. Migrant workers are willing to fill these physically exhausting positions because of economic hardships, and the lack of jobs in their own countries.
Monsanto Vegetable Seeds is the world’s largest seed producer. The organization founded in 1901 with a chemical product Saccharin that has evolved over the past hundred plus years (Monsanto Vegetable Seeds, n.d.). The organization, always innovative has found itself in various businesses such as plastics, turf, pharmaceuticals, food, and most recently 100% dedicated to agriculture. A cast organization such as Monsanto has many facets; however, this paper will focus on the vegetable seed division (MVS) within Monsanto. In 2005 the firm primarily focused on corn, cotton and soybean seeds and entered into an entirely new domain of vegetable seed. While its previous product lines were primarily produced, distributed and sold in a relatively small radius, vegetable seeds embarked the firm on a complete new way to manage a supply chain whereas the products may be produced in Asia, cleaned in the U.S. and sold in Europe (M. Secrest, personal communication, June 20, 2011).
Our current system of corporate-dominated, industrial-style farming might not resemble the old-fashioned farms of yore, but the modern method of raising food has been a surprisingly long time in the making. That's one of the astonishing revelations found in Christopher D. Cook's "Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis" (2004, 2006, The New Press), which explores in great detail the often unappealing, yet largely unseen, underbelly of today's food production and processing machine. While some of the material will be familiar to those who've read Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or Eric Schlosser's "Fast-Food Nation," Cook's work provides many new insights for anyone who's concerned about how and what we eat,
United States Department of Agriculture. (2011). 10 tips for affordable vegetables and fruits. Retrieved , from http://www.choosemyplate.gov/foodgroups/downloads/TenTips/DGTipsheet9SmartShopping.pdf
Although some of the pressure has come from increased competition with Mexican growers, most of it has been forcefully applied by the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes, the American fast food chains. In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first pay raise since the 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay the extra penny per pound that will go directly to the pickers. Shortly after, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. However, Burger King remained adamant in its refusal to pay the extra penny, as such action caused the tomato growers to cancel its increased wage deals with Taco Bell and Macdonald’s. According to such news, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers, describing the surcharge for poor migrants as “pretty much near un-American.”
In the documentary, “The Harvest,” the migrant works are exposed to subjective meanings by the way they view their work environment in the farming fields of agriculture. Most of the migrant works shown in the film are depicted as interpreting their social status as poverty and the inability to escape the harsh and demanding work environments they find themselves in. This can be best scene in the video where the young migrant female child is picking apples hoping that maybe her relocation to family in Florida might better her chances of a better education. Many view their situation as helpless as the one father finds himself with the daily struggles of vehicular upkeep and the challenges of always having to move from field to field for work.
For Mexicans, maize is not a crop, but a deep cultural symbol for daily life. Maize is now grown all over the world. Corn is commonly found in the United States in comparison to the shapes, sizes, and colors of the traditional maize varieties by the people of Mexico. Statistics show that, according to the website, calstatela.edu, The United States purchases over 70% of Mexico’s agricultural exports. Corn may length from a couple of inches to a foot long, in colors that include yellow, red, white, brown, blue, and black. Corn is attached to the daily lives of the peasants and indigenous people of Mexico. As the basic grain, it shapes daily meals, and it’s growing cycle influences the timing of festivals and holiday events. In addition, Corn
Have you ever looked inside your refrigerator and thought, ”I wonder how all of this food ended up here?”, If you have, you and the rest of America would be surprised at the answer. Many people in the U.S do not know where and how their food is produced, which raises many
San Miguel de Proyectos Agropecuarios exists as a company which aims to end poverty and nutritional disorders within the local population. This company was started on November 14, 1986 when Benito Manrique de Lara, founder of the production factory, came up with the idea of bringing a productive activity to the field in Huixcazdhá, Hidalgo, Mexico. The basis of the dream was the amaranth and the participation of a great part of the community to achieve a common objective: to cut malnutrition rate and end poverty among the members of the community. With amaranth San Miguel can, provide an economic alternative to those in need but respecting their way of living, customs and habits. San Miguel first and foremost was founded not to conduct major business, but to drive major economic and infrastructure growth in its base of operation, Huixcazdha, Mexico.
“Much Afghan produce has unlimited demand in regional markets and in terms of soil and sun, water and weather, Afghanistan has the ideal growing conditions of California and Chile.” (Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation & Livestock).
Che, D. (2007). Agritourism and its potential contribution to the agricultural economy. CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources, 2(063).
In this Century, United States face tons of problems especially Climate Changes due of illegal process in Agriculture. Industrial Agriculture is a main farmland in Unites States. Most of the crops produced in large scale and livestock operation. In Agriculture, there are producers and consumers make the food system to work and grow. Producers are person, company and country that makes or supply products for sale. What I have learned about them is producers just want to earn big amount of money. They do not care about human’s health, they just keep making products that can danger people. For example, the factory farming without proper sanitation. On the other hand, Consumers, like us, are the people who goes shopping for food every day. Sometimes we just get the products and didn’t read the labels or nutrition facts of the food. Consumers didn’t know what is behind the process of food. In this essay, I will focus on the main problem in Agriculture that we are facing right now.