When There’s Little Difference Between a Christmas Tree and a Sweet Potato

My family’s former dairy farm in western North Carolina has experienced several changes over the past fifteen years:  cattle have come and gone, fences have been torn down and rebuilt, and former milking parlors are now storage for various non-dairy related farm equipment.  The most drastic of these changes though is visible in the pastures; what was once was wide hillside grazing territory for about 50 head of cattle is now lined with Christmas trees that are owned by a local contractor.  A few cattle (now for beef) and a mule still graze in open plots next to the creek, but for the most part, the evergreen tree monoculture resembles many other hillsides throughout the Western NC region.

I realized an opportunity to learn more about the local Christmas tree industry after a close friend and fellow UNC-Chapel Hill classmate, Robyn Levine, received a six-month “Sowing Seeds for Change Fellowship” with the Durham, North Carolina-based nonprofit Student Action with Farmworkers (SAF).  As part of her assignment, Robyn was placed with the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System’s Farmworker Health Program in Boone, North Carolina.  Boone is also headquarters of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association, or a group that represents the state’s roughly 1,600 Christmas tree growers who produce an estimated 50 million Fraser fir trees on over 25, 000 acres.  Impressive numbers like these help make NC Christmas trees second in the nation for total Christmas tree receipts.

So what do trees have to do with food, right?  Focusing on North Carolina, the NC Department of Agriculture reports that “agriculture, including food, fiber, and forestry, contributes over $59 billion annually to NC’s economy and represents 22 percent of NC’s income.”[1]  The labor (i.e. planting, cultivating, harvesting, and preparing crops for market) required and largely completed by NC’s roughly 150,000 farmworkers “contributes over $12,000 in profits to NC’s economy annually” per each farmworker.[2]  The major crops that require the hand labor of farmworkers include tobacco, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, apples, bell peppers, and Christmas trees (among others).[3]  Considering these stats, some might say that Christmas trees have everything to do with agricultural production in this part of the world.

According to the SAF website, “close to 90 percent of farmworkers are Spanish-speakers…[and] the vast majority are born in Mexico.”^[4]  The reasons why these and other farmworkers immigrate to the United States are the very complicated and difficult results of both push and pull factors.  So-called “pull” factors might include, but are not limited to, recruitment by the agriculture industry to fill some of the most dangerous and low-paying occupations in the United States.^[5]  From the other side, “push” factors might consist of, but are also not limited to, “extreme poverty, lack of jobs, natural disasters, armed conflict, and civil unrest.”^[6]

Once farmworkers arrive in the US, many farmworkers’ circumstances remain strenuous for different reasons.  They can usually expect low wages with an average annual income of $11,000, few social benefits since most are ineligible for these services, increased risk of harm from various work related health concerns, limited insurance, and obstacles to healthcare, according to the NC Farmworker Institute.[7]   Moreover, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reports that farmworkers suffer from the highest rate of toxic chemical injuries and skin disorders of any workers in the country.[8]

In response, advocacy groups like SAF (previously mentioned by ZomppaB) have emerged in recent decades with a mission to help alleviate these difficulties and lend a voice.  As it says on their website, SAF began in the 1970s as a student project at Duke University that eventually led a successful lobbying campaign for the creation of NC Farmworker Legal Services.  After decades of documentation, outreach, and achievement, SAF now considers itself to be a nonprofit organization “whose mission is to bring students and farmworkers together to learn about each other’s lives, share resources and skills, improve conditions for farmworkers, and a build diverse coalition working for social change.”  Thanks to their efforts, “80,000 farmworkers and their family members have gained access to health, legal, education, and organizing support provided by SAF interns in the Carolinas.”

The organization offers a range of different opportunities for students, but my friend Robyn’s position in particular focuses on increasing farmworkers’ access to healthcare in and around Boone, NC.  She and other fellows are expected to complete projects for SAF that record and share stories of farmworkers at the same time as working with their partner office to help provide health education, case management, and interpretation for farmworkers.  It’s challenging work for a full time job straight out of college, but for Robyn’s interests, the position has turned out to be “a good fit” that combines her passions of medicine and social justice.

I had the fortunate opportunity to go on outreach with Robyn and her co-worker, Charles Webster, earlier this month.  Their outreach at the Farmworker Health Program either means taking a health-related curriculum on the road to visit farmworker camps, performing free health assessments, or translating at a local clinic.  There was a nutrition lesson on the books for that particular Tuesday, so we spent the evening on the highway and up hidden crooked roads that I have unknowingly driven by many times while growing up in the area.

I watched as they knocked on doors and asked for permission to lead a demonstration on reading nutrition labels, the nutritional value of several popular foods, and the amount of sugar in several drinks.  Most of the men who we visited at two different camps were either resting after a day of work or preparing to eat supper.  With kind accommodation though, both groups allowed us into their homes to begin the 30 minutes interactive session that concluded with the distribution of handouts that suggest healthy recipes and information about local healthcare resources.  Overall, the groups we visited that evening seemed pretty “into it,” according to Robyn and Charles, which generally made doing outreach in someone’s home much easier.

Later, Robyn and I talked about her experience as a SAF fellow thus far.  One of the topics we discussed the most was how she felt about how her, the Farmworker Health Program’s, and SAF’s work fit into the larger goals of the rising food movement in the United States.  We eventually decided that the wants of the two groups are congruent since both parties fundamentally work to achieve a more sustainable, transparent, equitable, and just food system for all: from the producers to the consumers.

This may seem obvious, but I know that I for one am guilty of forgetting where and from whom most of our food comes (even when the reality is, quite literally, in my backyard) since I strive to source as much as possible from my food from my local farmer’s market.  Looking at the bigger picture though, the rights of farmworkers are equally important as those of anyone who works to feed (or provide Christmas trees/whatever for) others.  Let us then, Americans and others, lend our voices for the rights of farmworkers as the first Food Day approaches, the first round of Food Corps members commence, the 2012 US Farm Bill comes to a vote, and Christmas tree season arrives once again…
 

Tags: Appalachian Regional Healthcare System’s Farmworker Health Program, Christmas tree farming, farmworker camps, farmworkers rights, Food Corps, Food Day, NC Farmworker Institute, North Carolina Christmas Tree Association, reading nutritional labels, rights of farmworkers, Sowing Seeds for Change Fellowship, Student Action with Farmworkers

Category: Communities, Featured, Featured Articles: Food Politics, Featured Articles: Health & Nutrition, Food Politics, Health & Nutrition, Piedmont NC