Hard and dirty work

[pinto]

Hard and dirty work

Nine hours of chopping and boxing vegetables, hoeing weeds and moving pipes leave a Tribune reporter with sore muscles and a newfound regard for produce and the immigrants who toil in the field

By Sarah Arnquist - [e-mail]

I will forever appreciate a cleanly cut head of napa cabbage. My new veneration for leafy greens comes after spending a day working side by side with workers on Tom Ikeda’s farm in rural Arroyo Grande. While the nation is embroiled in a debate over immigration, and California farmers worry they won’t have the labor force to plant, cultivate and harvest their crops, I wanted to better understand the effort (measured in sweat and aching muscles) required to put produce on the grocery store shelves.

After nine hours of cutting cabbage and cilantro, moving irrigation pipes and thinning a lettuce field, my hands were black and my back and neck hurt. And though I have the hardworking disposition of someone raised on the Minnesota prairie, I never want to hold a hoe again.

Yet, the men toiling the ground next to me returned to the fields the next day at 6:30 a.m. for another 10-hour day and 60-hour work week— their schedule for possibly the rest of their lives.

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/75835.html

[maddezmom]

1. great read

thanks for posting :thumbsup: Sarah Arnquist is a wonderful reporter and person.

[pinto]

2. Yeah, isn't it... Glad to see this on our local front page.

These are my neighbors. The Ikeda's have grown produce locally since before and after the Japanese-American incarceration, treat their employees well and truly respect the hard and dirty work that constitutes California's massive 'salad bowl' economy.