Mud, Sweat and Tractors

[chrispy]

Hello all
I don't know if anyone else watched this programme on BBC4 ( Mud Sweat and Tractors), the first week was about milk, and this weeks was about fruit and veg.
It was bascically about how the farming of these products have changed over the last 100 or so years, and has been facinating, with the fruit and veg one covering mainly Strawberries, and Tomato's.
I can heartily recommend this programme, and it is on the BBC I-player

[Snadger]

Here's the tractor and the muck outside my lottie...........I didn't think you'd appreciate a piccie of my armpit for tuther though!

[chrispy]

WOW, that is a really nice tractor, that wouldn't have been out of place at our local vintage tractor ralley last weekend.

My OH despairs over me and tractors..ha ha ha (thanks for the restraint with the armpit photo)

[Jardiniere]

shouldnt you have said "Cracking tractorrr".....................i like the programme too but i should have been a farmer ....................

[TonyF]

I thought the programme was excellent but so sad in many ways, all hi-tech and no real empathy with 'the product'.

[JILLY JACKSON]

love the little grey fergies!

[TEB]

I thought the programme was excellent but so sad in many ways, all hi-tech and no real empathy with 'the product'.

One of the strawberry producers apparently implement this for their workers:

"terms and conditions for workers, who live four or five to a room. They must pay £26.25p a week for accommodation, £3 a week for sewage and waste collection, £2.25 for electricity and £2.75 for leisure facilities, including a TV set, football pitch and disco. For £30, they have access to medical and translation advice.

The documents suggest a strict regime. Pickers can be sacked for eating a single strawberry, for stopping work, going to the toilet in a hedge, or for smoking indoors. If rooms are not "clean and tidy", they can be asked to leave. If they want to invite a visitor to the camp, they must ask permission two days in advance"

Sounds lke they should be running our prisons

[sewer rat]

One of the strawberry producers apparently implement this for their workers:

"terms and conditions for workers, who live four or five to a room. They must pay £26.25p a week for accommodation, £3 a week for sewage and waste collection, £2.25 for electricity and £2.75 for leisure facilities, including a TV set, football pitch and disco. For £30, they have access to medical and translation advice.

The documents suggest a strict regime. Pickers can be sacked for eating a single strawberry, for stopping work, going to the toilet in a hedge, or for smoking indoors. If rooms are not "clean and tidy", they can be asked to leave. If they want to invite a visitor to the camp, they must ask permission two days in advance"

Sounds lke they should be running our prisons

And your problem with this is

[TonyF]

TEB, I wasn't even thinking about that and those awful platform things they were picking from - especially with the gung-ho, 'I'm your mate' gang master or whatever he was. Reminded me of the modern version of sending small children under looms for some reason.

But at least they get a padded head thing to rest their heads on - but how bloody boring must that be?

What saddened me was the loss of the guy's business in Jersey and the obvious deliught of the hi-tech growers - look what we do, aren't we clever - no, bit like watching Gardener's World, too bloody clever by half! Like the old Pete Seeger song 'Little Boxes' everything the same, uniform, tasteless veggies and who ARE these customers that the supermarkets say want everything the same?

Some research group, tasting group of 12 people who say that they want every tomato/apple/pear/chicken to be exactly the same. Take a bloody risk now and again, buy a pear with a blemish on it and realise that you don't die if you eat one.

And all this crap about can't afford to buy proper food so eat take aways, too overweight to work etc etc - go dig your garden up and grow your own veggies, Lidl and Aldi sell cheap seeds! If I can do it with my health problems so can many/some people who are incapacitated because of their weight - and growing your own is good exercise, diet and exercise together!

Sorry rant over, I'm obviously getting too close to the soil here in this rural environment and the cyclical time line that I've always hankered for rather than chasing a linear clock which gives me strawberries - air miled and tasteless - at Xmas.

[Hilary B]

One of the strawberry producers apparently implement this for their workers:

"terms and conditions for workers, who live four or five to a room. They must pay £26.25p a week for accommodation, £3 a week for sewage and waste collection, £2.25 for electricity and £2.75 for leisure facilities, including a TV set, football pitch and disco. For £30, they have access to medical and translation advice.

The documents suggest a strict regime. Pickers can be sacked for eating a single strawberry, for stopping work, going to the toilet in a hedge, or for smoking indoors. If rooms are not "clean and tidy", they can be asked to leave. If they want to invite a visitor to the camp, they must ask permission two days in advance"

Sounds lke they should be running our prisons

This is how they get round the 'minimum wage' legislation. The profits wouldn't cover a straight minimum wage, so they get some of it back by these charges. Some businesses can't afford employees unless they use some such manoevre, others (especially large businesses) tend to do so in order to increase profits, regardless of whether they could operate without......
Of course the workers who agree to such conditions tend to be immigrants, often imported specifically BECAUSE they will work under these conditions....

[sewer rat]

This is how they get round the 'minimum wage' legislation. The profits wouldn't cover a straight minimum wage, so they get some of it back by these charges. Some businesses can't afford employees unless they use some such manoevre, others (especially large businesses) tend to do so in order to increase profits, regardless of whether they could operate without......
Of course the workers who agree to such conditions tend to be immigrants, often imported specifically BECAUSE they will work under these conditions....

I do not for one minute believe that the large commercial strawberry growers cannot afford to pay the legal minimum wage. Strawberries are a high value crop that are easy to shift - these large fgrowers (very often not individual farmerss but large companies or co-operatives) just wanna maximise profits for their shareholders - that's why they tend to favour varieties such as Elsanta, - not the best tasting strawberry by a long way, but very productive plants with fairly uniform berries which, most importantly, have a long shelf life (for a strawberry anyway)

[Hilary B]

I do not for one minute believe that the large commercial strawberry growers cannot afford to pay the legal minimum wage. Strawberries are a high value crop that are easy to shift - these large fgrowers (very often not individual farmerss but large companies or co-operatives) just wanna maximise profits for their shareholders - that's why they tend to favour varieties such as Elsanta, - not the best tasting strawberry by a long way, but very productive plants with fairly uniform berries which, most importantly, have a long shelf life (for a strawberry anyway)

I think it very unlikely that large commercial producers could not operate without these wangles, but the 'borderline' size businesses often could not. It isn't just strawberries of course, and there IS a lot of labour involved in getting strawberries picked, sorted and packaged........

wrty varieties, I would never grow Moneymaker Tomato in my own garden, because the name says it all, doesn't it?

[chrispy]

Having been a lorry driver in Kent Before moving to Devon, I visited quite a few of these farms, to deliver the porta-cabins, toilets etc that make up these temporary villages, and often the farm managers had a very good rapport with their workers, and valued them quite highly, as not only were they very reliable, and hard working, but they also took on the work that many of the British great unwashed considered below them, making it otherwise impossible for the farmer to harvest without the help of immigrant workers.
Many of these workers returned season after season, and i delivered sleeping quarters, toilets with showers, communal areas (that often had pool tables and such put in them),and refridgeration units for food storage, a lot of them were young, and treated it as an experience and an opertunity to earn money that they wouldn't earn in their own countries.
I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but to me it seemed abit like a sort of British Kabbutz

[TonyF]

I'm sure there are exceptions to this, but to me it seemed abit like a sort of British Kabbutz

I have two sons who lived in Israel and worked on kibbutz for many years - it's nothing like kibbutz, nothing at all.

[chrispy]

I have two sons who lived in Israel and worked on kibbutz for many years - it's nothing like kibbutz, nothing at all.

sorry Tony, was a bit of a guess with the Kibbutz thing, have just looked it up, and take your point, was a bad exhample from me.....My point was more to emphasise the fact that teenagers from all over europe use fruit picking seasons as a tool for travel to foreign lands, and i know the asparagus growers in kent allways had trouble getting home grown labour to cut the crop, and so welcomed the yearly arrival of their foreighn workers...