Tomatoes and the Fight Against Slavery
by Jan on March 10, 2009At our Purim celebration last night, families where gathered around tables of pizza and salad. The conversation came up about tomatoes, which happened to be in the salad. I thought for a minute about why I don’t eat tomatoes this time of the year?
They don’t taste good!
I do know that most of them are coming from Florida or Mexico and that 90 percent of the fresh domestic tomatoes we eat come from south Florida, specifically, the Naples area. Immokalee is just an hours drive from Naples and is the tomato capitol of Florida and where I continue to hear of the labor conditions of field workers. Last April there was a Senate hearing which focused on the living and working conditions facing thousands of migrant tomato pickers, their rate of pay, and the industry’s refusal to implement agreements by major restaurant chains to pay workers an additional penny a pound for harvested tomatoes. The conditions of slavery has been highlighted recently in several magazines, including this month in Gourmet.
So, for now, I am passing on the tomatoes.
Fruits and vegetables must be labeled with their country of origin. I just checked at my local grocery and the fresh (could you really call these fresh?) tomatoes come from Florida, most likely Immokalee.