About the vegetable processing plants I went to on Saturday (for veg production class). The whole thing was interesting, but depressing--the machinery, the monoculture is so lifeless. It doesn't seem right. I'm glad I went, though. I am always trying to figure out why conventional agriculture is the norm.
The whole operation was very impressive. Tremendous yields. They had a huge machines that picked up row after row of corn, massive amounts at once. Then they brought it to the plant, where it was flash frozen within hours, making for high-quality (as far as nutrient preservation goes) frozen product. The plant was extremely clean, despite all the corn going through machines, getting de-husked and cut off the cob, sometimes falling onto the floor. I can see the appeal, from a capitalist perspective.
As soon as we stepped into the plant, I felt uneasy. All the managers were white and everyone working inside was brown-skinned. Apparently they bring people up from Puerto Rico for the season. They live right next store in work "camps" (look like jails) and work hard for the season, saving up money. Then they go home with far more money than they would have made at home. It sounds great, but the job is so mind-numbing. You stand there with a mundane task for hours, smelling the wet corn, wearing ear plugs that can't cut out the sound of the loud, vibrating, whirling machines. Your job might be to pick little bad kernels of corn out of the huge quantity of corn coming by you. How should anyone have to do that job? It strips people of their humanity. Even if the direct alternative for them is worse--there has to be better ways to organize society. Simpler, with shared tasks.
It was also good to see the huge amounts--food is not scarce! I can see easily how food is left in the fields to rot, because no one can get to it (and they can't let people just come and take it in a for-profit system). Or how if you have more corn processed than you can send out (have bought), that you just throw it away. That is where excess food goes--it rots in the field or the garbage if you can't pay.
We also saw canned beets. Not much more to say there.
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