[NAFEX] Sanitation

road's end farm organic101 at linkny.com
Thu Dec 13 19:26:39 EST 2007


On Dec 13, 2007, at 4:48 PM, <dmnorton at royaloakfarmorchard.com> wrote:

> Folks,  I really hope we have no Mexicans on our list that can read the
> comments about their hygeine.
>
>   "Who of you is without having gone in the orchard, let them say the 
> first
> slur!"
>

Thanks, Dennis. This has been bugging me, but I couldn't think how to 
put it.

The problem of lack of toilets in large-field operations is real; but 
it's got nothing to do with the country of origin of the workers. I 
used to pick (and prune, etc.) grapes for a company that shall remain 
nameless here, except to say that it's since gotten much larger. They 
had some nice new portapotties that they used to lend to the town every 
year for an annual grape festival.

The rest of the time those johns sat in the barn with the timeclocks 
(which had indoor plumbing). They never went out in the field. Some of 
the fields had no toilets; those that did had one ancient wooden 
outhouse, often many hundreds of feet from where we were working.

This was years ago, and they were wine grapes. But I doubt that the 
attitude has disappeared.

Everyone who worked there was local, most of them for generations. And 
none of them/us thought anything of just going behind the nearest 
grapevine that was thick enough.

But I am still ticked off about those portapotties. (insert more 
appropriate word in exchange for "ticked", if you so choose.) I expect 
the town thought that they were put out in the fields when not at the 
festival. But no, they were just for the tourists, not for the workers. 
We got to look at them, there in the barn where they weren't needed; 
but the management couldn't be troubled to put them out where we needed 
to use them. And it had nothing to do with where anybody was from.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly
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