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You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Open Thread: Mark Bittman Likes (Some) Industrial Farming

Open Thread: Mark Bittman Likes (Some) Industrial Farming

by Anne Laurie|  August 18, 20132:57 pm| 38 Comments

This post is in: Food, Open Threads

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Interesting article in the NYTimes from a guy who’s been dinged as an anti-modernist crank:

I’VE long wondered how producing a decent ingredient, one that you can buy in any supermarket, really happens. Take canned tomatoes, of which I probably use 100 pounds a year. It costs $2 to $3 a pound to buy hard, tasteless, “fresh” plum tomatoes, but only half that for almost two pounds of canned tomatoes that taste much better. How is that possible?

The answer lies in a process that is almost unimaginable in scope without seeing it firsthand. So, fearing the worst — because we all “know” that organic farming is “good” and industrial farming is “bad” — I headed to the Sacramento Valley in California to see a big tomato operation.

I began by touring Bruce Rominger’s farm in Winters. With his brother Rick and as many as 40 employees, Rominger farms around 6,000 acres of tomatoes, wheat, sunflowers, safflower, onions, alfalfa, sheep, rice and more. Unlike many Midwestern farm operations, which grow corn and soy exclusively, here are diversity, crop rotation, cover crops and, for the most part, real food — not crops destined for junk food, animal feed or biofuel. That’s a good start…

IT’S far from paradise, but it isn’t hell either. The basic question is this: Are the processes and products healthy, fair, green and affordable?

Workers in the fields have shade, water and breaks; they’re not being paid by the piece. Workers in the plants are not getting rich but they’re doing better than they would working in the fields, or in a fast-food joint…

The canner P.C.P. is running what appear to be safe and clean production lines while producing close-to-“natural” tomato products that nearly anyone can afford…

How does this happen? Unionization, or an increase in the minimum wage, or both. No one would argue that canned tomatoes should be too expensive for poor people, but by increasing minimum wage in the fields and elsewhere, we raise standards of living and increase purchasing power.

The issue is paying enough for food so that everything involved in producing it — land, water, energy and labor — is treated well. And since sustainability is a journey, progress is essential. It would be foolish to assert that we’re anywhere near the destination, but there is progress — even in those areas appropriately called “industrial.”

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38Comments

  1. 1.

    srv

    August 18, 2013 at 3:08 pm

    Organic ninnies are teh enemy of modernism, unions and good wages.

  2. 2.

    Yatsuno

    August 18, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    Industrial farming in California is very different from Midwest farming for a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is Cesar Chavez. Without his uniting the farm workers, they would be getting slave wages and treated like dirt. Another big point is California has been doing this for a very long time, so they’ve figured out (for the most part) how sustainability works.

  3. 3.

    Emma

    August 18, 2013 at 3:22 pm

    Golly. Someone discovered the Pacific Ocean.

    Yes. Well paid, well-treated workers make most operations better. More efficient. More productive.

    I just wish most of the rest of the NYT opinion pages weren’t so set in convincing us otherwise.

  4. 4.

    Mary G

    August 18, 2013 at 3:23 pm

    But, but, but…businesses and productive citizens are leaving the soc1alist state of California in droves to go to the new utopias in Texas where they don’t have to pay state income tax! Failed state! Governor Moonbeam!

    Always a laugh to those of us still here.

  5. 5.

    Hungry Joe

    August 18, 2013 at 3:24 pm

    About 10% of the price of California produce comes from farm labor (it varies with the particular fruit or veggie, of course), so boosting farm workers’ pay wouldn’t affect prices that much. A 50% increase would only bump prices up (ballpark!) 5%. Hell, call it 10% — still a bargain, and we’d have many tens of thousands more Californians earning a REALLY decent wage.

    And on a way too familiar front, Dowd goes apeshit batshit maureenshit about the Clintons again. Jee-zus, but that woman is unhinged.

  6. 6.

    Joel

    August 18, 2013 at 3:29 pm

    @srv: You could try reading the link.

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne

    August 18, 2013 at 3:32 pm

    I use a lot of frozen and canned veggies in my cooking, partly out of laziness (they’re almost always pre-cut for me) but also because they generally seem to taste better than the “fresh” grocery store ones. Since I don’t have access to garden tomatoes, it makes more sense for me to use canned San Marzanos than to try and make do with the crappy hothouse tomatoes sitting on the shelf at Ralphs.

    And, yes, thanks to Cesar Chavez, industrial farms in California are slightly ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to workers’ rights. IIRC, the story that AL posted a few weeks ago about applying Total Quality Management ideas to agriculture (ie empowering farmworkers to point out bad or dangerous practices) was also here in California.

  8. 8.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 18, 2013 at 3:36 pm

    @Mary G: It’s a hellhole, but we manage.

  9. 9.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 18, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    @efgoldman: At least there’s an ocean on the ‘wrong side’ and not a pond.

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    August 18, 2013 at 3:42 pm

    @Yatsuno:
    At least as big a reason is that California has concentrated on high-value, non-commodity crops. We have the climate to grow fruits, vegetables, and the like, which have a better markup than grain, soybeans, and cotton. It also means that California still has a lot of relatively small family farms, because it’s possible to make a living on a few acres of high-value crops.

  11. 11.

    Roger Moore

    August 18, 2013 at 3:45 pm

    @efgoldman:

    The water’s still on the wrong side.

    The water is to the west, which everyone can tell you is the correct side. Just ask anyone from Europe.

  12. 12.

    Yatsuno

    August 18, 2013 at 3:47 pm

    @Roger Moore: Oh yeah. It’s a perfect storm of good sustainable practices for both the crops and the labour involved. Now that whole water rights thing needs to get sorted out…

    @Joel: Trolls gotta troll. Also. Too.

  13. 13.

    Bill D.

    August 18, 2013 at 3:51 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Well, partly. There still are a lot of cotton, rice, and hay farms in the Central Valley, but there are also a lot of farms growing high-value crops both there and in the coastal region.

    There is a stereotype of California agriculture as being based on subsidized crops, subsidized water, and heavy mechanization. While this stereotype is misleading if applied on a blanket basis, there is enough truth to it to give it legs and credibility. Have a look at the agriculture along much of I-5 in the San Joaquin Valley for a prime example.

  14. 14.

    Bruce Lawton

    August 18, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    Living in the East Bay means a great seasonal flow of fruits and veggis to local farm markets. If I don’t grow it I can drive 15 minutes and get it fresh picked plus the ocean on the left means seeing sunsets and trying for the “green flash”.

  15. 15.

    scav

    August 18, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    @Roger Moore: Ha! As a Barbarian, the water was on the wrong side to the south (a fun cruel trick to play with frosh minds — beware behavioural geographers). Following that trick, I moved to the East-West stretch of the Mississippi.

  16. 16.

    jonas

    August 18, 2013 at 4:01 pm

    It’s important to keep in mind too, as Michael Pollan reminds us in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, that most of the stuff labelled USDA Organic comes from massive industrialized farming operations. I think there’s a difference that Bittmann draws out here between large scale and “industrial”. Something can be large scale and still be sustainable.

  17. 17.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    August 18, 2013 at 4:03 pm

    @scav: Actually the water is both west and south here.

  18. 18.

    askew

    August 18, 2013 at 4:04 pm

    Since this is an open thread, what the hell is going on with Greenwald and his partner exactly? What I’ve gleaned from twitter is apparently, Greenwald’s partner was carrying top secret information in the UK and the UK police questioned him about it for 9 hours before releasing him. And Greenwald now thinks the UK government is worse than the mafia and is threatening the release of top secret materials. WTF?

    Also, Bloomberg wants to fingerprint everyone living in public housing? How is that constitutional?

  19. 19.

    chopper

    August 18, 2013 at 4:04 pm

    hard, tasteless, “fresh” plum tomatoes

    people also have to remember that most plum tomatoes only taste good after being cooked.

  20. 20.

    scav

    August 18, 2013 at 4:08 pm

    @BillinGlendaleCA: depending on scale of “here”, yes — we did have to manipulate /restrict our definition of here a tad. But for on-campus and IV navigation, south was dominent.

    ETA indeed, it is complicated for the whole coast, which is why it fit in so nicely with the rest of the usual questions. NY city as far north as which major European city, Reno east or west of San Diego, etc.

  21. 21.

    Botsplainer

    August 18, 2013 at 4:10 pm

    OT – if you want to do something fun with your puppy, play youtube clips of wolves howling.

  22. 22.

    feebog

    August 18, 2013 at 4:14 pm

    I just picked another 2 dozen roma tomatoes from the garden. The Mrs. is about to make her third batch of tomato sauce from them. They aren’t very big, but I have never seen 2 tomato plants produce like these. We will end up with around 300 tomatoes from just 2 plants. And yes, they are very tasty.

  23. 23.

    Botsplainer

    August 18, 2013 at 4:17 pm

    @askew:

    Since this is an open thread, what the hell is going on with Greenwald and his partner exactly? What I’ve gleaned from twitter is apparently, Greenwald’s partner was carrying top secret information in the UK and the UK police questioned him about it for 9 hours before releasing him. And Greenwald now thinks the UK government is worse than the mafia and is threatening the release of top secret materials. WTF?

    Dear Glenn and Glenn’s partner:

    Stay in fucking Brazil, and I hope you can stay far enough behind your walled community gates so that dusky-hued Brazilian poors don’t commit some street crime on your entitled white asses.

    If you’re going to insist on playing these games, it will suck to be each of you any time you leave.

    Signed,

    The World

  24. 24.

    Mnemosyne

    August 18, 2013 at 4:18 pm

    @askew:

    There’s a new thread about it above.

  25. 25.

    srv

    August 18, 2013 at 4:20 pm

    @Joel:
    You people are so precious.

    Let’s see, Organic Valley, the primary “organic” member of the PCP co-op

    As corporate membership on the board has increased, so, too, has the number of nonorganic materials approved for organic foods on what is called the National List. At first, the list was largely made up of things like baking soda, which is nonorganic but essential to making things like organic bread. Today, more than 250 nonorganic substances are on the list, up from 77 in 2002.

    The board has 15 members, and a two-thirds majority is required to add a substance to the list. More and more, votes on adding substances break down along corporate-independent lines, with one swing vote. Six board members, for instance, voted in favor of adding ammonium nonanoate, a herbicide, to the accepted organic list in December. Those votes came from General Mills, Campbell’s Soup, Organic Valley, Whole Foods Market and Earthbound Farms, which had two votes at the time.

    Keep drinking that “organic” kook-aide

  26. 26.

    ? Martin

    August 18, 2013 at 4:47 pm

    @srv: Never heard of Organic Valley. I think we have an entirely different notion of organic out here, much as we have an entirely different notion of mexican food.

  27. 27.

    Jay C

    August 18, 2013 at 5:02 pm

    @Hungry Joe:

    Yeah, the two pieces I read first in today’s Review section of the NYT were Mark Bittman;s tomato piece (I was expecting either a shallow fluff-piece or a Harvest Of Shame – style breastbeater, but Surprise! got some intelligent journalism instead. Shock.

    But you’re right: it had seemed for years that MoDo’s bad case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome had been in remission, but today’s screed was an incredible recurrence: “unhinged” is right: it looks like a non-trivial segment of the punditariat really want’s Hillary Clinton to run for President (and probably get elected) – just so that they can recycle all their old ’90s CDS garbage – no matter that it was mostly bullshit at the time, and hasn’t improved with age….

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 18, 2013 at 5:15 pm

    The issue is paying enough for food so that everything involved in producing it — land, water, energy and labor — is treated well.

    That obscure Islamosocialist guy from Edinburgh of more than two centuries ago figured this all out.

    But no one ever reads his book, other than other Islamosocialists.

  29. 29.

    Older

    August 18, 2013 at 5:31 pm

    Organic Valley is a big name, and our local organic cooperative grocery sells a lot of their products, but I never buy any, because they also sell a lot of local products that actually are organic.

    I don’t know about the wonderful flavor of canned tomatoes. Could it be that Mark Bittman and I mean different things when we say “great flavor”? I really like the tomatoes we can buy around here, in several different grocery stores and at the Farmers’ Market (two days a week — eat your hearts out!).

  30. 30.

    techno

    August 18, 2013 at 5:38 pm

    “Fresh” produce is the biggest food scam going—especially in winter. Most of it has been picked at least a week ago. And no matter how carefully handled, your “fresh” produce is still at least a week old. By contrast, most frozen food is processed within a few hours of picking. This means it can ripen further in the field. BIG difference in freshness between 3 hours and a week.

    Don’t believe me about freshness? Try this. Set your water to boil in some location close to a stand of sweet corn. When it gets close to boiling, go out and pick the corn and husk it while you walk back to the kettle. The experience is astonishing and explains why the early settlers claimed fresh sweet corn was the finest food ever grown.

    The science reason is that once the corn is picked, the sugars start converting into starches. In 24 hours, half the sugar is gone. Buy premium frozen corn, and the sugars are still there. And the process is similar in most plants. So if you cannot buy same-day produce at a farmer’s market, “fresh” is just another word for old.

  31. 31.

    e.a.f.

    August 18, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    What exactly is organic. when reading some of the labels on some of the so called “organic” foods, I find words I can’t pronouce. Once I can’t pronouce a word, the food looses its “organic” status with me.

    Almost anyone with a balconey can grow some veggies. Lettuce, onions, tomatoes, it all tastes great and costs little to grow.

    Where we live, Comox Valley, Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada, many farmers grow food in the “traditional” manner. that covers, field grazed cattle, lamp, chickens, veggies, etc. it tastes wonderful, is purchased at twice weekely farmers’ market. Works for everybody. The farmers make a living, the people get to eat locally grown good food, and the “middle man” is eliminated, and little is spent on moving the food to market.

    Vancouver, b.C. has urban farms. A farmer leases property in someone’s yard and grows food for resturants, local shops, individuals, etc. works well and adds to food security, with an urban area.

    Most people who live in cities in homes which have their own property could grow a lot of their own food. It would cut down on expenses and improve the enviornment.

  32. 32.

    Mnemosyne

    August 18, 2013 at 5:52 pm

    @e.a.f.:

    What exactly is organic.

    At least in the US, it’s hard to say because different states have different standards, and the federal government has its own standard as well. I believe California still has the strictest definition of what can be labeled “organic.”

  33. 33.

    Joel

    August 18, 2013 at 6:21 pm

    @srv: Look. Read the Bittman link and then comment. Just give it a shot. You might even learn a thing.

  34. 34.

    Wil

    August 18, 2013 at 6:22 pm

    The water to the west has real waves and real sharks, instead of ripples and guppies.

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    August 18, 2013 at 6:37 pm

    Good article. It didn’t mention the amount of pesticides and fertilizer used per acre in California compared to Florida, where it is phenomenally more. IIUC they’re more or less practicing hydroponics in the sand.

  36. 36.

    Long Tooth

    August 18, 2013 at 7:08 pm

    Thanks for that post. I live an easy drive from Winters, and would enjoy taking that tour. I also want to tour a catfish farm located outside Sacramento somewhere, which sells reasonably priced and delicious catfish. A butcher I knew took its tour, and raved about the good grains and fresh water the fish were raised with. Up until the very moment of being slaughtered, the fish live high on the hog.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    August 18, 2013 at 8:15 pm

    It costs $2 to $3 a pound to buy hard, tasteless, “fresh” plum tomatoes, but only half that for almost two pounds of canned tomatoes

    $1.50 (or less) for a 2 lb. can of tomatoes? In your dreams.

  38. 38.

    slag

    August 18, 2013 at 11:59 pm

    @srv: People who comment without reading are teh enemy of critical thought. Also, they’re assholes.

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