Field Work
Photographs by
Institute of Industrial Relations Gallery, UC Berkeley 1/21/2003-7/15/2003
click on photos for larger view and full caption
 
Half the nation's vegetables and fruits
are grown in California, including 85% of the strawberries
and 95% of the tomatoes in processed foods. |
 
| 04_002 |
Lettuce |
2002,
2001 |
Minimum wage: US$6.75/hour
Romaine Lettuce in market: US$1.39/head
Caesar salad in restaurant: US$7.50.
Legend has it the Caesar was created in 1924 by Italian
chef Caesar Cardini at a restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico. |
 
California garlic workers get about
$8/hour on piece rate. Wholesale, California garlic
is $38-$40 for a 30 pound carton.
The California garlic industry is at a crossroads
due to global economic changes, soil depletion and
high land costs. |
 
| 04_004 |
Asparagus |
2002,
2001 |
California outlawed the short handled
hoe years ago, but not during harvesting.
Asparagus in market: US$3.89/pound,
wage for CA. picker: US$6.75/hour |
 
| 04_005 |
Garage family |
2002,
1997 |
According to the California Institute
For Rural Studies, there is a substantial labor surplus
in CA. agriculture with a related decline in wage
rates and a larger drop in annual income.
Most farm workers are young, averaging 6 years of
formal education. They earn about $6500/year, and
use few government services. Forty percent are migrants
rather than year- round employees. |
 
| 04_006 |
Homeless |
2002,
1992 |
For more than a decade farmworkers'
real income has fallen. Employers have stopped providing
housing and transportation either as benefits or at
reduced rates. Increasingly workers camp in the fields,
live in cars and homeless shelters or in groups renting
a motel room, apartment or home. |
 
| 04_007 |
Pistachios |
1999,
2002 |
California's current pistachio acreage
totals 101,500 acres with 78,000 bearing acres and
23,500 non-bearing. Estimated 2002 harvest 280 million
pounds.
About 50% of the California pistachio crop is exported,
mostly to China, Japan, Europe and Canada.
Pistachios in market: US$2.99/pound
Wage for CA. picker: US$6.75/hour |
 
Brought to the New World by Spanish
missionaries after Cortez conquered Mexico in 1521,
the pomegranate went north with the missionaries as
they searched for new converts.
Long a religious and artistic symbol, the pomegranate
symbolizes fertility, death and eternity.
Fresno, CA. Pomegranate picker.
Average production: 5 to 6 tons per acre. |
 
| 04_009R |
Cotton |
1999,
2002 |
From a study by International Cotton
Advisory Committee: U.S. cotton farmers received subsidies
worth $2.1 billion in 2001. The subsidies allow U.S.
growers a worldwide price advantage depressing prices
to a 30 year old low of 42 cents/pound, halving the
incomes of many developing country's producers.
From Wall Street Journal, 26 June, 2002:
"U.S. aid to Mali for social programs: $40 million/year.
Cotton is nearly 1/2 the country's export revenue
and faces a $30 million deficit this year with a 10%
reduction in income to Mali cotton farmers."
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All photos copyright 2003 Robert Gumpert
Field Work
Photographs by
"Field Work" is one of a series of projects that hopefully
raise questions in the viewer's mind about relationships in
the world we live in. In this case the subject is agriculture
and those that work the fields. All the images are from California,
where half of the nation's vegetables and fruits are grown,
including 85% of the strawberries and 95% of the tomatoes used
in processed foods. The photo/text panels illustrate the harvesting
of specialty crops such as asparagus, romaine lettuce, pomegranates,
garlic, and cotton, and together tell the story of the political
economy of agriculture and of the field workers that form the
labor backbone of this industry with falling wages and increased
corporate subsidies.
Robert Gumpert is a freelance documentary photographer living
in the bay area. He started his career in Harlan County, Kentucky,
in 1974, documenting what turned out to be the last three months
of the epic United Mineworker's strike. These photos resulted
in a 1976 exhibit and catalog in Los Angeles, "Harlan County
Kentucky: A Photo-Documentation," and many are part of
the Coal Employment Project Records Appalachian Archives in
East Tennessee State University. He continues to photograph
social and economic subjects. Recent projects include "Faces
Behind the Labels," a traveling exhibit of garment workers
mounted by Oakland's Sweatshop Watch during 1998 and 1999, "Lost
Promise: The Criminal Justice System," and an ongoing study
of the health care system. His photos have been used in outreach
media by U.C.'s Center for Occupational and Environmental Health,
and he is currently a photographer under contract with the California
Department of Industrial Relations (see "Meet
California's Division of Apprenticeship Standards Apprentices
1999")
E-mail: gumpert@ix.netcom.com
P.O. Box 77132, San Francisco, CA 94107, (415) 821-2091
http://www.sightphoto.com/sightphoto/Gumpert/gumpert.html
This is the fourth in a series of photo exhibits sponsored by
the Institute of Industrial Relations Library. |
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