INVESTIGATION: FARM TALE
Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook
For Barry Estabrook, that perfectly round, perfectly red grocery-store tomato represents everything that is wrong with industrial agriculture: the alarming use of fertilizers and pesticides, the relentless market pressure on workers and growers alike, and the laserlike focus on shipping, storage and shelf-life with predictably tasteless results. “Tomatoland” is more than the sad tale of one fruit’s decline from juicy summer treat to bland obligation. It is an indictment of our modern agricultural system.
The book takes readers on a whirlwind tour from Peru, the birthplace of tomatoes, to California research labs, Pennsylvania farms and Estabrook’s Vermont kitchen, where in one scene he tries desperately to inflict damage on a store-bought tomato by dropping it, throwing it, then bowling it across the floor. No dice. (And no surprise, either: Early commercial breeders were instructed to imagine the tomato as a projectile in their quest for fruit that could travel long distances.)
Most of the action, though, takes place in Immokalee (rhymes with broccoli), ground zero to the Florida tomato industry. The Sunshine State, Estabrook explains, is anything but an ideal place to grow tomatoes. The soil is sand, which lacks nutrients and therefore must be supplemented with tons of chemical fertilizer. The rarity of frosts provides pests and pathogens a haven, requiring growers to spray tons of chemical pesticides.
There are plenty of shocking statistics: In 2006, Florida growers sprayed nearly 8 million pounds of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides on their tomato crops, nearly eight times as much as California growers used for a similar-size crop. But by and large, Estabrook lets people — migrant workers, activists and scientists — tell the story. In the case of pesticides, there is no tale more heart-wrenching than that of three families whose children were crippled or killed, it was later proved, because of their mothers’ work in the winter tomato fields.
“Tomatoland” doesn’t offer fixes for the industry’s failures. But it does spotlight the people working to change it. By the end of “Tomatoland,” an obvious solution will present itself to some readers: Head to the backyard and plant a few tomatoes of your own.
