Jessica Rojas Heredia
Professor Saladino
POLI 391
22 Feburary 2022
In Tomatoland How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook, we learn more about the agriculture process and culture of mass production of tomatoes in Florida. Within Tomato land, we know about the different regulations, embargos, and subsidies the United States government has implemented to protect tomato production in the United States. We discover the number of diseases and how there are so many tomatoes breeds that certain strands make tomatoes immune to them. The number of pesticides a farmer always has available to prevent infections. Estabrook further discusses the issue of cultivating tomatoes in Florida for
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He explains that the main impediment is the Florida Tomato committee and their regulations over the tomatoes as they should look and how they should have a long shelf life. Within this paper, I will discuss different issues and other examples as to how although there has been a change in the tomato industry, they are still following the Florida tomato committee regulations rather than trying to change the rules. Also, smaller farms can be part of the solution to a more sustainable and ethical way of farming. Like most, we learn that this industry’s primary purpose is profit. As their weight sells tomatoes, they are trying to produce as much as they can force ripe them by gassing them with ethylene gas after only ten or fifteen weeks of planting (28). We learn of the different protections that the government has. They were implemented to protect American farmers from foreign competition. For the tomato industry, in 1893 they made, tomatoes were considered vegetables, although they are fruit, so that they would be protected under the Tariff act of March 3, 1883 (6). Or the embargo by President Kennedy in 1962 prevented Cuban tomatoes into the United States, one of Florida’s most significant competitors for winter tomatoes (9). Which led to the expansion and how large the tomato industry in Florida. After the embargo was enacted, harvest rose sixty percent, and the revenue increased to eight hundred million in 1990 compared to 1960 when the payment was forty-seven