The Fruit Hunters Read online

  “Seventy-six million Americans get sick and five thousand die from food-borne hazards each year,” says the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Though we may think of them as safe, the sad reality is that fruits, like everything else in our industrialized food chain, are a source of food poisonings. Each year, tainted produce is responsible for more illnesses than seafood, poultry, beef or eggs. Even organic produce can leech noxious microbes into our bloodstream, as a recent rash of infected spinach demonstrated.

  There are regular outbreaks of E. coli in melons and apple juice; salmonella in orange juice, cantaloupes and tomatoes; hepatitis viruses in strawberries; cyclospora in different berries; and Vibrio cholerae in fruits that have been in contact with contaminated water. There have even been documented cases of apple juices containing radioactive isotopes because the concentrate came from orchards within fallout range of Chernobyl.

  The central paradox is that fruits seem so pure and healthy, but their dissemination entails so many compromises that by the time we’re eating them they’ve lost the attributes that made them special in the first place.

  I can think of no sadder example of our food paradigm than two posters taped to the window of a California IHOP. One is a colorful photo of pancakes heaped with bananas, strawberries, nuts, syrups and whipped cream with the caption, “Welcome to Paradise.” Lower down, an 8×10 photocopy states: “Chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm may be present in foods or beverages sold here.” Such signs are posted on many fast-food outlets. Heaven isn’t a place on earth, at least not at these drive-throughs.

  Sustainability is only now starting to be discussed as an objective in agriculture. One innovative program in Europe has been to use government subsidies to pay farm owners to convert their arable land into forests. As a result, European forests have actually expanded by 10 percent in the past twenty years. Such “afforestation” initiatives should be replicated globally. According to a National Research Council report, most U.S. government policies actually “work against environmentally benign practices and the adoption of alternative agriculture systems.” Governmental regulatory boards aren’t only beholden to their benefactors—agribusiness corporations have donated over 400 million dollars to U.S. political parties since 1990— they’re helmed by industry affiliates with blatantly vested interests.

  “More than a hundred representatives from polluting industries occupy key spots at the federal agencies that regulate environmental quality,” reports Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The White House office of Environmental Policy chief of staff from 2001 to 2005 was Phillip Cooney, the former chief lobbyist from the American Petroleum Institute. He joined Exxon two days after resigning from his post (following a media scandal about his rewording of documents on global warming). It’s not surprising that commercial logging occurs in national forests and parks given the fact that, from 1998 to 2002, the head of the Forest Service was Mark Rey, a former timber-industry lobbyist. The director of the USDA’s Food Marketing and Inspection Service was also the president of the National Cattleman’s Association. The secretary of agriculture had also been the president of the American Meat Packers Association. In 2006, the head of the FDA, Lester Crawford, pleaded guilty to false reporting and conflict of interest charges for owning shares in the food, beverage and medical device companies he was responsible for regulating.

  “Everywhere you look,” says Bill Moyers, “the foxes own the chicken coop.” Moyers’s PBS documentaries on food pesticides revealed that chemical companies have knowingly withheld damaging information about harmful toxins in their products. His research, based on archival evidence from internal company memos, confirms that we live “under a regulatory system designed by the chemical industry itself—one that put profits ahead of safety.”

  IN 1900, 38 percent of Americans lived as farmers. Today, under 2 percent do so. William Heffernan’s Consolidation in the Food and Agricultural System reports that about a dozen agribusiness middlemen who package, process and deliver our food (like Cargill, Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland) make most of the profit whenever consumers buy something produced by farmers.

  U.S. farmers commit suicide at four times the national average. In developing nations, workers on gigantic plantations are paid pennies to swing machetes through the sweltering heat, drenched in viscous tree latex and their own sweat, facing lethal levels of pesticide exposure and contending with enormous spiders and scorpions. Epidemiologic studies of field workers show they have increased health problems such as lym-phoma, Parkinson’s and a gaggle of cancers. With a steady regimen of heat exhaustion, chemical exposure, nerve damage and neurological disorders from backbreaking stoop-picking, farmwork is the most hazardous industry in the United States, according to the National Safety Council.

  Workers compensation rates skyrocket when pickers need to climb ladders. As a result, big growers now plant dwarf fruit trees. Agribusiness farms have been trying for years to replace human pickers with robots. Newton Research Labs have developed machine vision systems that can detect different shapes and colors. New Zealand’s kiwis are now being sorted, graded and even pollinated by robots that work twenty-four hours a day. These automatons, which are overseen by 1.5 humans per eight-hour shift, “also collect data that will enable coolstore operators to decide which fruit to market and at what time,” explains designer Dr. Rory Flemmer. The goal is to have fruit-picking drones whizzing through orchards day and night. While it certainly seems more feasible than the four-thousand-year-old Egyptian method of training monkeys to pick fruits, its merits are debatable. Nobody wants a raspberry harvested by metal fingers.

  Mechanical fruit production is almost monstrous. Tree fruits are knocked off their branches by mobile shaking machines that look like Jabberwockies. Their brown metallic pincers clamp around trunks and shake trees so hard that they turn into pointillist blurs. Afterward, pickers walk around and beat the branches with a stick to knock off any remaining fruits. Wind-rowing machines and suction pumps gather the fruits and dump them on a mat. By the end, the battered and abused tree is visibly wilted.

  In this era of precision agriculture, electronic devices are used by farmers to monitor their fruits’ size, ripeness and firmness. Some growers own satellite systems linked to computers that monitor weather patterns. During ice storms, radar-activated hail guns fire sonic waves that melt the ice pellets into rain. Leonardo da Vinci suggested planting citrus orchards near streams, so that the water could power heat-generating fans in the winter. Today, digital alarms linked to propane heaters and windmill-like hot-air machines protect crops during chills. Helicopters are flown over plantings to circulate warm air and disperse mist or moisture. Trees are also hosed down by sprinkler systems: as water freezes onto the plants, it releases heat.

  RECENT SURVEYS REVEAL that a significant number of consumers prefer crunchy peaches bred to have a hard, cargo-truck friendly exterior. Most of us have never tasted a good peach, let alone a downy pastel orb bursting with sweet nectar when plucked right from the tree. As Marshall McLuhan pointed out, we’ve become so removed from reality that we’re starting to prefer artificiality. Part of the reason we think fake is fine is the narrow selection. Turgid peaches aren’t even sold in supermarkets, mainly because they can’t be shipped. Ken Slingerland, a peach breeder for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, positively loathes juicy peaches. “They squish all over your face,” he told me. “We believe that consumers would rather have a peach that’s like a nice crunchy apple. Everyone has their preference, and the texture I like is ‘crispy.’ ” Another farmer I spoke to referred to industrial peaches as “plastic Kraft dinner fruit created by dead brains.”

  Perhaps the crunchers believe the only alternative is mushy, insipid peaches. But peaches exist that are light-years better than anything we’re being sold. Some growers refer to these as “chiropractic fruits,” because they’re so juicy you need to bend over when eating them. But maybe you’ll like crispy best too. As a new
peach campaign asks: “Are you a Cruncher, Leaner, or In-betweener?”

  If you haven’t, try a real leaner peach before making up your mind. As David Masumoto, farmer and author of Epitaph for a Peach, writes of the variety grown on his family’s land: “Sun Crest is one of the last remaining truly juicy peaches … so juicy that it oozes down your chin. The nectar explodes in your mouth and the fragrance enchants your nose.” Juiciness doesn’t mean the fruit is totally soft; on the contrary, texture is very important. According to stone-fruit expert Andy Mariani, of Andy’s Orchard in Morgan Hill, California, the perfect peach should have “pleasant resistance,” a firmness that yields only to sufficient pressure. Only after our teeth force through the cell walls should the fruit open its floodgates. “It can be an almost sexual experience for some people,” says Mariani.

  The texture and flavor of Mariani’s Baby Crawford peach is a kaleidoscope of sweetness, acidity, some astringency—pure peach ecstacy. “It looks hard, but melts in your mouth. It just oozes nectar,” he says. Masumoto, blown away after tasting the Baby Crawford, acknowledges that it’s even better than the Sun Crest.

  I tasted enough Baby Crawfords to go dizzy when I visited Andy’s Orchard in the summer of 2005. The following year, when I called Mariani to check in on the peaches, he sadly informed me that heavy rains and warmer than usual weather had destroyed the entire crop. “The search for the perfect peach is elusive,” he said. “It’s good for a moment, then a few days later it’s gone. It’s hard to grow. Nuances in humidity and temperature over one night can drastically affect quality.” No wonder growers use any means at their disposal. The fact that fruits ever make it to us is almost heroic.

  12

  Permanent Global Summertime

  They don’t have a decent piece of fruit at the supermarket. The apples are mealy, the oranges are dry. I don’t know what’s going on with the papayas!

  —Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld

  IT’S LIKE A MAFIA convention here,” says Jimmy the Greek, my neighborhood grocer. Taking a sip of steaming coffee from his Styrofoam cup, he points a calloused finger toward the Bentleys, Hummers and Ferraris in the parking lot near the entrance to the produce wholesaling warehouse. “The owners come to work wearing half a million dollars. The $300,000 cars, the $150,000 watches, the jewelry, the rings, the silk suits. I’ve seen one of them wearing fifteen different watches—Vacheron, Rolex, Constantin. These guys live in $10 million homes. You always hear stories about coke parties, whore parties every night. The money they’re making is astronomical, but they’re gonna get burned in the end. You’re selling tomatoes—lie low for chrissakes.”

  I first met Jimmy in front of his Montreal store, where he was unloading crates of oranges from the back of his van. I started asking him questions about where he gets his fruit. He was too busy to talk, but he invited me to join him one morning on his pickups. A week later, we’re shuffling toward this concrete warehouse in the freezing 5 A.M. darkness. Jimmy shakes his head. “When I got in, I knew there was corruption, but not to this extent. It’s sad, ’cause it’s fruits.”

  One of the reasons the fruit industry is so lucrative, he says, is that produce is one of the last tax-free businesses. When you go to a grocery store, fruits aren’t taxed. The same applies at the wholesale level: everybody pays cash. “They make a lot of legit money, but there’s other money there too,” says Jimmy. “The business is full of bikers, bookies, loan sharks and gamblers. Drug dealers get into fruits to wash money.”

  It reminds me of stories I heard in Miami of growers dealing with an Asian organization called the “Fruit Mafia” headed by a woman named Gin Gin. “If you’re selling tropical fruits in America, you know Gin Gin,” said one longan farmer. In the days when longans weren’t widely available, he said, the Fruit Mafia would fly down from New York with three-hundred-thousand-dollars cash in brown paper bags to buy his harvest. Japan’s yakuza, Hong Kong’s triads and Colombia’s drug barons all launder money with fruits. Fruits even figure in the weapons trade. The documentary film Darwin’s Nightmare features a chilling scene of a pilot revealing how he shipped arms to Angola and returned to Europe with grapes from Johannesburg. “The children of Angola received guns for Christmas,” says the pilot, overcome with emotion. “European children received grapes… this is business.”

  The only way to thrive in the fruit racket is to be what the Yiddish call a hondler: a fast-talking negotiator who gets things done. Jimmy, with his whip-fast verbal and math skills, is well suited to the industry—even though he despises it. Stocky and ponytailed, Jimmy has angelic blue eyes that contrast with his rugged features, giving him the appearance of an old-looking young person. Because the hours and the pay are like working two jobs at once, he says, the produce business attracts people with gambling debts or drug habits. He signals one of the salesmen and asks him to tell us his schedule. He works Monday through Saturday from 5 P.M. to 6 A.M. Even after punching out he remains on call. “When I’m out of here, customers can still reach me on my cell to place orders 24/7,” he says. “I take calls while I’m sleeping. I have to—that’s my job.” (Shortly after our visit, a forklift clipped him, rupturing his Achilles tendon.)

  We enter the wholesaling area, a series of cavernous asphalt rooms filled with crates of fruits. The produce is organized by temperature requirement: some of the chambers are frigid, others are nearly warm. The different climates are divided by thick strips of plastic curtains that Jimmy pushes through with confidence. They always seem to bounce back at me, pinching and scraping. Honking forklift drivers nearly mow me down on several occasions. “Yeah, watch out for them,” says Jimmy. “They’re grumpy.”

  While we walk around the warehouse, Jimmy makes calls to other wholesalers to compare prices. “Everybody’s trying to buy low and sell high,” explains Jimmy. “It’s like the stock exchange.” When we arrived, tomatoes were twenty dollars a box. As we stood chatting with a salesman, another shipment came in, and all of a sudden tomatoes were seven dollars a box—priced to move. Jimmy took fifty cases. Spoilage, weather conditions and scarcity account for the constantly fluctuating prices. In the fruit business, the laws of supply and demand are intimately woven into the moods of Mother Nature.

  Human nature also plays a big role. “Claiming dumps” is a classic wholesaling trick. It involves bringing in a load of insured fruits. When the load arrives, inspectors who have been paid off declare that the fruit has gone off, meaning the importer can make a claim and get his or her money back. Instead of dumping the fruits, however, or sending them back (by the time they’d return to wherever they came from they’d really be rotten), the wholesaler sells them.

  Jimmy explains how easy it is for buyers to “rook” a grower. “It’s about building their trust. ‘Send me a load,’ I pay it. ‘Send me another load,’ I pay it. Now I have a good reputation, see? Then I tell them I want to make a move. ‘Send me ten loads—I’ll pay it when they sell.’ And then I don’t: ‘Fuck you.’ What’s the little Mexican gonna do? Come after me?” Not without a legal division. “Nobody fucks with Chiquita, Del Monte or the big boys,” says Jimmy. “They’ll come after you.”

  Wholesaling doesn’t favor small growers. Alongside demanding cash up front, farmers can consult the Produce Reporter Company’s Blue Book, a directory that lists the names of wholesalers, shippers and growers, rating them based on how many times they’ve shafted others. “Moral Responsibility” ratings determine whether it’s worth dealing with the company, and on what terms. The Blue Book also mediates and arbitrates in order to help resolve conflicts. It even operates a collecting department that assists in recovering delinquent accounts.

  At Hunt’s Point, New York City’s main wholesale market, corrupt USDA inspectors have long accepted bribes from wholesalers. In 1999, an undercover federal investigation code-named “Operation Forbidden Fruit” resulted in eight inspectors and thirteen market employees being arrested, imprisoned or fined. According to the House Agriculture Subcommittee, �
�The investigation revealed that owners of twelve produce firms at the Hunt’s Point Market had been routinely paying cash bribes to the USDA inspectors in exchange for lowering the grade of the produce being inspected. This saved the produce wholesalers a substantial amount of money per load, and at the same time defrauded farmers out of tens of millions of dollars.”

  FROM THE OUTSIDE, there’s little indication that the world’s biggest wholesale produce market, which feeds over 23 million New Yorkers every day, is anything other than a prison. Coils of barbed wire with grimy plastic bags stuck in them gaze menacingly down from a concrete wall surrounding the perimeter. Hidden away in a forsaken corner of the Bronx, Hunt’s Point Terminal Market stands among scrap-metal depots, car-crushing junkyards and forklift-repair enterprises. This enormous industrial compound isn’t some utopic city of fruit; it’s a holding pen for perishable merchandise.

  This is where New York’s shops go fruit shopping. With its sophisticated computerized security system, you can’t just walk into the market. Part of the justification for the penal vibe has to do with food safety: it’s an obvious target for anyone wanting to contaminate New York’s food supply. But rather than feeling secure, as I drive around the market’s outskirts on Food Center Drive, I can’t help recalling Jimmy’s tales of corruption and crime.

  The Mafia connotations aren’t only in Jimmy’s mind. Shortly after my visit, the New York Police Department broke up a million-dollar gambling ring based in the market. One of the eleven people arrested in “Operation Rotten Apple” was John Caggiano. Owner of C&S Wholesale Produce, Inc., one of Hunt’s Point’s biggest produce wholesalers, Caggiano is also an associate of the Genovese organized crime family, according to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. “We are determined to rid these markets of any mob activity whatsoever,” he announced at a press conference, linking other wholesalers to the Luchese and Bonanno families.