Tomatoland

How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit

by Barry Estabrook
Price: $15.99
ISBN-13: 9781449423452
ISBN-10: 1449423450
Format: Paperback
Size: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Page Count: 256 pages

“The pleasures of Tomatoland are real. They’re strong but subtle and sustained. Mr. Estabrook’s prose contains a mix of sweetness and acid, like a perfect homegrown tomato itself.”
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“If you care about social justice—or eat tomatoes—read this account of the past, present, and future of a ubiquitous fruit.”
—Corby Kummer, TheAtlantic.com

“Tomatoland (is) in the tradition of the best muckraking journalism, from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle to Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation.”
— Jane Black, The Washington Post

“Masterful.”
—Mark Bittman, New York Times Opinion blog

“Eye-opening exposé . . . thought-provoking.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Estabrook adds some new dimensions to the outrageous . . . story of an industry that touches nearly every one of us living in fast-food nation.”
—David Von Drehle, Time magazine blog Swampland

“Tomatoland makes you second-guess your food choices. That Florida red tomato you’re eating? Yeah, it’s probably gassed to make it that red color, and it also may have been picked by slaves. Not so tasty, eh?”
—Carey Polis, The Huffington Post

“Read award-winning journalist Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland, and you won’t look at a tomato in the same way again . . . Estabrook presents a cogent case for reform, challenging everyone to stand up for what is good not only for the taste buds and the wallet, but also for the soul.”
—Epicurious.com

“This is the sort of book you want—need—to finish in one or two servings as it will forever change the way you look at the $6 burger.”
—LA Weekly

“Tomatoland has a moral force that I won’t soon forget. Estabrook makes it clear that the choice we make between a plastic-tasting supermarket tomato and fragrant organic farmer’s market tomato . . . says everything about our humanity, and our conception of America as a nation.”
—Michele Owens, Kirkus Book Reviews

“In the tradition of Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, Estabrook gives us the darker side of the fruit we so love. Readers who may not have been turned off the winter version of our collectively favorite fruit will certainly find reason here to pause before making a selection at the supermarket. Choose well, Estabrook reminds us.”
—ForeWord Reviews

“Our favorite fruit may not be quite as innocuous and delicious as it appears.”
—Salon.com

“Vital information that every conscientious eater—and parents of eaters—ought to know.”
—CivilEats.com

“A must read for everyone who eats. I don’t care if you are in the commodity cattle business or feed your own family with a small garden. I don’t care if you are a policy maker, extension professional, molecular biologist, industrial mogul, minister, teacher, or what have you. Tomatoland illustrates how fundamentally bankrupt our current commodity-based, industrial food systems have become and offers a glimmer of hope for a food future that’s healthful for all involved. Read it and try not to weep.”
—Grit Magazine

“Put Tomatoland on your reading menu. It will surprise and perhaps enrage you, but its final flavor is hopeful.”
—St. Petersburg Times

“The buzz about Tomatoland, a scathing indictment of South Florida’s tomato industry, keeps growing.”
—The Oregonian

“You can really stop at any point during the narrative and decide that you’ve bought your last supermarket tomato, but Estabrook is just warming up . . . a brisk read, engrossing as it is enraging.” —TheDailyGreen.com

ROOTS
Author Barry Estabrook follows the path of a small, wild, nearly inedible berry native to the harsh coastal deserts of Ecuador, Peru, and Chile as it migrates to what is now Mexico, then to Europe, and eventually to the United States, where it is now our second-most-popular produce item.

A TOMATO GROWS IN FLORIDA
With its high levels of humidity, voracious insects, and nutrient-deficient soil, Florida is one of the worst places you could choose to grow tomatoes commercially. Yet the state grows 90 percent of the tomatoes sold in the United States at certain times of year. How do growers do it? With tons of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers—and a high environmental and human cost.

CHEMICAL WARFARE
During a two-month period in the agricultural town of Immokalee, FL, three horribly disfigured babies were born. Their mothers were neighbors who toiled in the same tomato field where they were often sprayed with chemicals when they were pregnant. While looking at the broader picture of the misuse of agricultural chemicals in Florida, this chapter tells the story of the lawyer who battled one of the country’s largest agricultural companies in an attempt to bring justice to one of those babies.

FROM THE HANDS OF A SLAVE
If you have ever eaten a tomato during the winter months, you have eaten a fruit picked by a slave. That is not hyperbole. Human trafficking is all too common in Florida.

AN UNFAIR FIGHT
Even under the best circumstances, Florida tomato workers are subject to the worst labor abuses in the country. Paid strictly for the amount they harvest and denied all benefits, union protection, and overtime, they are lucky to earn the minimum wage. A grassroots group battles the huge tomato growers and their fast-food and institutional customers to secure a one-penny-per pound raise for pickers—enough to lift them out of poverty.

A PENNY PER POUND
When grower Joe Procacci developed a tomato that could withstand the rigors of being grown, packed, and shipped commercially but still deliver taste, the Florida Tomato Committee, a cartel-like organization that has Orwellian powers over tomato production in the state, forbade him to sell it. And when two tomato producers offered to pay their workers one penny more per pound for the tomatoes, the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange threatened them with fines.

MATTERS OF TASTE
Two plant breeders at the University of Florida have spent their careers attempting to develop tomatoes that can be grown cheaply under commercial conditions and conform to the strict size and shape requirements of the exchange. If they succeed, we all will be able to enjoy what is now an oxymoron: a good-tasting supermarket tomato.

BUILDING A BETTER TOMATO
Some dedicated individuals have struggled for decades to improve Florida’s tomato industry. They include a workers’ group that is slowly winning improved labor conditions, an organic grower who proved that tomatoes in Florida need not be bathed in a witch’s brew of chemicals, a developer who has built clean and affordable housing for thousands of migrants, and a teacher who built a statewide network of early childhood education centers for workers’ children.

TOMATOMAN
Tim Stark admits that he is half crazed, but by turning the logic of industrial agriculture on its head, the Pennsylvania farmer grows tomatoes for the finest chefs in New York and provides a decent living for his family and his workers.

WILD THINGS
With approximate geographic coordinates from Roger Chetelat, a tomato geneticist at the University of California, the author ventures across barren Peruvian deserts in search of the wild relatives of the tomato. Returning to the source imparts lessons that the modern tomato industry should heed.

AFTERWORD (new)
Estabrook goes to “Tomato School” with a crew of harvesters at a large Florida producer to learn about their rights and responsibilities under the Fair Food Agreement, signed by the Florida tomato growers and the Coalition of Immokalee workers in late 2010. The agreement represents a sea-change: Time clocks now keep exact track of hours worked, there is zero tolerance for human trafficking and sexual abuse, and workers are trained in health and safety measures. Unfortunately, the supermarket chains refuse to participate. The coalition has now taken its campaign to the nation’s largest grocery retailers.

The story ends with Tomatoland, a hard look at today’s agribusiness systems, which produce industrial tomatoes as lacking in nutrition as they are flavor. Of all the fruits and vegetables we eat, none suffers at the hand of factory farming more than a tomato grown in the winter fields of Florida, which accounts for one-third of the fresh tomatoes grown in the United States. Modern agribusiness can’t deliver a decent-tasting tomato in large part because it’s essentially against the law; regulations set by the Florida Tomato Committee determine what a tomato should look like, and the older, tasty varieties don’t conform to the rules of color and shape.

As Barry explains in this fact-filled yet approachable book, consumers and society pay a price when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases:

• The tomato got its start in the arid climates of South America, making Florida’s humid weather possibly the worst place for tomato growing. This results in heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.
• The underpaid workers in Florida’s tomato fields are exposed to chemicals daily, with a toll including cancers, respiratory ailments, and severe birth defects among newborns. That’s not all—one assistant U.S. attorney referred to Florida’s tomato fields as “ground zero for modern-day slavery,” complete with beatings and being “sold” to crew bosses to pay debts.
• A tomato today contains less vitamin C, thiamin, niacin, and calcium and 14 times as much sodium as its 1960s counterpart.

There’s no doubt Americans, or anyone who longs for the flavor and texture of a truly home-grown tomato, will want to hear the messages of Tomatoland. Tomatoes are our second-most popular produce behind lettuce, with Americans buying $5 billion worth of commercially grown fresh tomatoes in 2009. And nearly nine out of 10 backyard gardens include tomatoes.

After reading Tomatoland, we should never look at a tomato the same way again, or settle for inferior produce.