That is potentially an ethnocentric label. I considered going with Slave Labor, but no one is really using the slave term anymore, even though slaves are everywhere. The label at one point was changed to Third World. Or it used to be. Non-industrialized labor? I don't know the correct label anymore. I like the sound of Third World Labor.
It is a truly humbling experience, and I don't think one can understand without that first hand experience. Like the mountain; it cannot be described, and one see it themselves: one must go see for their self.
The farm I'm working on had a Mexican that worked for them for years. His record was a twelve hour day, picking sixteen bushels of green beans. The farmer said he stood up at the end, stretched his back, and said, "God must of knew you needed these beans, my back is strong today." I have to tap out at four hours of that in the field. I don't get over a bushel an hour. It will be a long time, if ever, that I get that strong.
I remember reading about how Brazil celebrated when Monsanto came to town with glysophate. They had huge celebrations, and they burned all their hoes. Before Monsanto people had to hoe the fields of corn and beans by hand. This is mundane, physically demanding labor. Historically it is the work done by slaves. After several hours of hoeing, with no shade, no wind, back breaking, shoulders aching, no end to the row in sight; life gets put in perspective. Work or starve.
I recently read a book about the Milwaukee urban farmer, Will Allen. His story starts with his parents having first hand experience of slavery, and share cropping. How they fled the south, giving up farming. How as an adult there was a certain amount of shame involved with him wanting to be a farmer, because it was so closely associated with slavery. Allen acknowledged though, that farming is part of being human, and has nothing to do with race. He also clearly acknowledges that our current row crop system, mono-crop farming, is not the way to do it.
I grew up on two different farms, but as a kid I was never really made to work hard like I try to do now. One farm was the Big Ag style, 600 acre, four wheel drive tractor, row crop farming, with a couple hundred head of hogs. The other farm was a tear down an old barn, and build a house with the materials kinda farm. I remember spending mornings resharpening nails that my grandfather had pulled, and straightened. Growing up I saw the poverty of farming. Row crop farmers are the most welfare recipient people in the country. People always complain about welfare, and food stamps, "freeloaders", when it's farmers getting the most government hand outs.
The same people complaining about welfare, and food stamps, are voting with their dollars. They vote when they buy the cheap processed food. Every time they buy processed food, eat fast food, eat in a restaurant; they are voting to maintain the system. They are voting to keep farmers reliant on welfare from the government. This decision perpetuates the system. I've sat at several farmer market booths, and watched these people pass up real food, for processed food, then complain on Facebook about the system. I can't say it enough; public education in the United States works.
I used to live in a town absolutely surrounded by farmland, and nothing in the grocery stores was local, and none of it was healthy. It is a broker culture from this perspective.
Considering the newest science on gut health, and happiness, food is the most important factor in mental health and happiness. It all starts with food, and this is now scientifically demonstrable. Adding to this the slave quality to the labor involved in bringing about healthy nutritious food, farmers shouldn't be poor. There is a famous chicken farmer who points out that people will pay five or six dollars for a coffee drink, but not for a dozen of eggs. Thus the farmer stays poor, and the person destroying our gut health gets rich.
If everyone was paying their share, real food would be expensive, and it would be most peoples biggest expense. It wouldn't be the cable bill, the phone bill, the car payment, the eating out; the bulk of ones money would spent on real food. This would automatically put food as the reason for social gathering with family and friends. It would be the biggest parts of our days. It would be more central to our lives and well being. It can be looked up; it's official now: without real food one can never be happy.
We are monkeys. We are on a flying rock, hurtling through space. We evolved to live communally. Why aren't we just chilling, and maintaining food and shelter? Why all this extra unnecessary crap?
I'd beg you if it would work. Go spend a week working for a farmer who grows real food, and pay attention to the labor involved to keep the ship afloat.
