I've seen a bunch of press recently (at least the kind of press I read) about how monoculture is bad ecologically because it makes pest control harder (i.e. if a thing that eats wheat finds your 100s-of-acres-big wheat field it will go to town and breed like mad), reduces habitat for wildlife (critters thrive with biodiversity, especially the big critters), depletes soil and therefore requires increased fertilization (different crops need different nutrients and some kinds of crops actually put nutrients back - i.e. nitrogen fixers), and increases shipping distances (yes, let's grow all the rice in California and then ship it all to China!).
And all of those are good points and I agree with them. But there's one thing I keep distinctly NOT seeing and it surprizes me that it hasn't been brought up. And that's the issue of labor. Monoculture is also bad for farmworkers. There were two distinct things I recall hearing in the past several months that finally made this click in my head.
First was a quote from the farmer at my CSA, Farmer Tom. He said: "Most of our cost increases result from increasing the wages of our workers, so that they might make a decent living and afford decent and stable housing in Watsonville. Our hope next year is to finally offer them basic health insurance and provide the opportunity for continuing education." (see the quote in context in last November's newsletter). Holy crap I get food from a place where the farm workers actually get decent wages and OWN A HOUSE!! How do they manage to do it when so many other farms have to rely on illegal labor? Well part of it is that people are willing to pay a premium for local organic food, true. But that's not the whole story.
The second bit was a comment from a grain farmer in a story I heard on NPR talking about illegal immigration. I don't have a link to that story so this is from memory. He said something to the effect that he needs a large amount of labor for about two months out of the year and the only way he can get this labor is to rely on illegal immigrants. He even tried offering higher wages but Americans just don't want to do this kind of work no matter the price.
And then it hit me - the bit about the two months. Americans don't want to be migrant labor. They want to be able to stay in one place, provide a stable home to raise children in, and let them attend the same school with their friends for years at a time. How does my CSA allow its workers to do this? By growing a variety of crops throughout the season, not all of which need to be planted or harvested at the same time! Instead of hiring 50 workers for two months, they have a half dozen workers that have steady work throughout the year! It seems so obvious now, and yet it took me a long time to connect the two concepts.
Of course this farm also has the advantage of being in Northern California, where the growing season lasts effectively all year. I'm not sure a similar arrangement would work in, say, Massachusetts, where the growing season is more like half of that. And yet even there there are things to be harvested in the winter - like maple sugar! And my mom tells me of sometimes digging under the snow in her garden to harvest late-growing kale or cabbage. And of course there are always greenhouses. Any new englanders with CSAs know how their labor arrangements work?
We need to redesign our food system. It's broken.
(And thanks to orangeclouds115 for the inspiration for this diary. Her vegetables of mass destruction diaries set a high standard!)
crossposted to my livejournal.