Report Reveals Child Labor on Blueberry Farms
Ever read a story that makes you feel guilty, sad, and horrified all at once? This one from ABC News was that for me. Four journalism fellows working with ABC News through the Carnegie Corporation uncovered children as young as five picking blueberries in the fields in several states. These children, usually the children of migrant workers, are pressed into service because workers are paid by the number of buckets they fill, not any sort of hourly or living wage.
The story focuses on a particular farm in South Haven, Michigan. One of the most shocking visuals in the story is a pretty little 5-year-old girl girl named Suli lugging two heavy buckets of blueberries, her little feet clad only in flimsy sandals. And this is where the guilt and revulsion comes in for me. See, my family vacationed in South Haven this year. In addition to being the one of the largest producers of blueberries in the country, South Haven is a lovely little beach town nestled along the shore of Lake Michigan. Based on the establishing footage they shot and when the blueberry harvest happens, we were likely there just a few miles away while they were filming these kids working in the fields.
Worse? I could have some of those blueberries picked by that little girl, or her slightly older cousins, in my freezer right now. Here I thought I was doing it right, buying them at the farmer’s market in town, enjoying the chance to get one of my favorite fruits locally and in season.
The grower in the report, Adkin Blue Ribbon Packing Company, was cited by the Labor Department this week for child labor violations, and WalMart and Kroger both said they’d stop carrying his products. But the problem of child labor in agriculture is widespread, and hardly limited to one kind of farm or one state.
I’m not sure how we can make sure our food is not picked by children (please share if you do), but the idea of my children wolfing pancakes with blueberries picked by a girl hardly older then they are doesn’t sit well with me.
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Tags: ABC News, agriculutre, blueberry farms, child labor, child labor laws, ethical eating, farming, Michigan, migrant workers, South Haven, young children harvesting fruit
8 Comments
PlumbLucky commented on Nov 03 09 at 10:09 amI think I read a report where Meijer is also not doing business with this company any longer either…
And yes, the photo and the idea that child labor has been used so close to home and so recently, both absolutely disgust me.
Emily commented on Nov 03 09 at 10:33 amyou can help support the CARE Act which would equalize the child labor law filling in the loophole where agriculture is excluded. it also would make DOL more responsible for investigatin child labor
S. Saran commented on Nov 03 09 at 2:00 pmI am a resident of Van Buren County Michigan, where these blueberry farms are located, and I want to emphasize the fact that these “blueberry growers” are generally huge, industrialized factory farms & not the nostalgic family farms of yester-year. Having grown up on a “nostalgic” family farm, I wholeheartedly agree that the children on a family farm should be able to tend to “chores”, but please keep in mind that this news report is about “corporate farming” where child labor laws and health laws absolutely need to be adhered to otherwise, as evidenced by this news report, the migrant workers in Van Buren county Michigan (& elsewhere) will be subjected to on-going sub- standard living conditions & illegal child-labor.
Further, as a resident of Michigan’s “Blueberry Growing Capital of the World”, I can attest to the callous disregard of several blueberry farmers regarding a host of issues. As an example, I happen to own property on a small Michigan Lake (Coffee Lake) that abuts one of these industrialized blueberry farms and, rather than dig a well, the blueberry farmer prefers to drain the lake every summer in order to water his blueberries (again, a factory farm & not a nostalgic family farm). I have watched the wildlife on this lake be decimated but, oddly, even though this lake is designated as a federal wet-land, given that a “grandfathered” Michigan law permits a farmer to “take water” from any lake that abuts his property, our blueberry farmer continues to wantonly withdraw water without concern for the wildlife or the property values of his “neighbors”. Further, this is not the only lake being drained in Van Buren Michigan by these industrial “blueberry farmers”…several lakes in Van Buren County are being drained in order to produce the blue-berries that appear within our stores. So, given the disregard by several blue-berry farmers for their impact on the environment and their neighbors’ property values, it doesn’t surprise me at all that they use child labor and continue to provide sub-standard housing. Truly, many of them are just interested in cutting-costs as much as possible & if this means using child-labor, providing sub-standard housing & damaging our environment, they will continue to do so as long as they make a profit.
betty commented on Nov 03 09 at 2:15 pmIs a 5 yr old picking blueberries really so horrible? I’d rather my kids pick blueberries all day than sit watching TV.
Eric commented on Nov 04 09 at 10:57 amI don’t think there is anything inherantly wrong with children doing work. I think there’s a problem where children are worked way to hard, and that’s what child labor laws attempt to prevent. When those laws were instituted agriculture couldn’t survive without child labor and so ag was largly exempted (and from almost all labor laws like OSHA, workers comp, etc.). Now I don’t know anything about blueberry picking, but I know something about detassling (corn). Our neighborly mexicans want to be hired on to detassle, and then show up with their kids. They have no ‘day care’ to send them to, and they need every penny they (and their children) can earn. Its really a bit of a quandry. I’ve worked with my boss’ sons (8,12,14) for a while now and they all do different tasks, but they aren’t worked like adults. In a small farm setting everybody has to work together to make life possible. Some people may see that as abuse, but I’ll tell you nothing brings a family closer than overcoming challenges together where you have to rely on each other. I certainly don’t like seeing the footage of the 5 year old hauling blueberries, but there is always more to these stories.
jenny tries too hard commented on Nov 04 09 at 2:13 pmIf children are overworked (and it wouldn’t take much to overwork a 5-year-old) that’s a shame on the parents, more than on the company who owns the farm. The workers on chile and cotton fields near where I grew up were basically left to their own devices for most of the day, much like you wouldn’t oversee nearly anyone you hired to do a contract job, like painting your house or trimming your trees. You don’t particularly care how many breaks are taken, how long the work takes or how the workers do it, so long as the job gets done and done well.
It is clearly the parents of this little girl who are causing her to work, not the farm owners. For the record, it is the little girl’s parents who put her in flimsy sandals, too.
Allys commented on Nov 05 09 at 11:54 amJenny Tries Too Hard; Yes, but it said they are paid for each bucket brought in, not hourly or any of that. They needed all the help they could get. Maybe they can’t afford to get her better shoes. Maybe they had no choice but to make her work just so they could make ends meet? Don’t blame the parents completely, blame people not paying folks enough for work they know they’d never accept being paid less than minimum for.
I think changing the pay to hourly and to a reasonable amount is the only way to prevent that.
Sarah commented on Nov 05 09 at 2:46 pmI like Eric’s comment. Also keep in mind that a lot of five-year-olds would rather be working alongside their parents than in school/ day care all day. And how many of us pay to pick out own berries/ apples with our kids?
I’m not trying to equate farm tourism with the realities of farm labor. But it’s not all black-and-white.
