18 CapitalPress.com
September 18, 2015
Machines take place of migrants as berry harvest booms
By PATRICK WHITTLE
Associated Press
DEBLOIS, Maine — Mary
Marshall grew up living the life
of a migrant farmer, spending
hours under the hot summer
sun picking wild blueberries
with her parents and eight sib-
lings, then ending the day bath-
ing in a lake.
It was grueling work that
she looks back on fondly — a
way of life that brought peo-
ple of different cultures to the
camps in Maine’s vast blueber-
ry barrens. And she laments the
way it is disappearing.
“Machines are taking over.
Even just going down to the
camps, I see a lot of machinery.
That’s pretty sad,” said Mar-
shall, who harvested berries 40
years ago. “Our people could
really pick that.”
A steady push toward mech-
anization in Maine’s blueberry
industry is reducing the number
of migrant farmers who trav-
el to the state to rake the crop,
which is vitally important to
the state’s economy, state offi-
cials and industry leaders said.
Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press
In this July 30 file photo, blueberries fill a tray on a harvester in
a field near Appleton, Maine. Some farms report a decrease of
more than half in the number of migrant workers they employed
compared to just a few years ago due to the increased use of
mechanical harvesters.
Maine’s blueberry harvest at-
tracted more than 5,000 migrant
farmers ten years ago and it’s
down to about 1,500 today, said
David Yarborough, a University
of Maine professor of horticul-
ture.
Workers have come to Maine
to rake blueberries for years, and
many of today’s rakers are of
Latin American or Caribbean
origin. Others are Native Ameri-
Oregon fossil find is the last
non-human primate known
to live in North America
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
It was an 18-year investiga-
tion of a 29-million-year cold
case, beginning with the dis-
covery of a single tooth in 1997
amid the sprawling ranchlands
of Eastern Oregon.
Two more teeth found in
2011 and a jaw fragment discov-
ered this year sealed the deal:
The bones are the fossilized
remains of the last non-human
primate to live in North Amer-
ica, the chief paleontologist at
Oregon’s John Day Fossil Beds
National Monument said.
The find is significant in
rural Oregon because counties
such as Grant, where the fos-
sil was found, and neighboring
Wheeler, also home to the na-
tional monument, continually
try to diversify their economies.
Ranching and logging prevail in
both, and the region has tried to
attract eco-tourists, those drawn
by the science of the fossil beds.
For bragging rights, Sam-
uels said the fossil was found
in Grant County, in the Sheep
Rock unit just inside the county
line it shares with Wheeler,
The 5-pound, lemur-like
animal arrived 29 million years
ago, probably crossing from
Asia over the Bering Strait
land bridge, paleontologist Josh
Samuels said. Other primates
known to inhabit North Ameri-
ca disappeared about 35 million
years ago, he said.
“This thing showed up six
million years after the last of
them vanished,” he said.
Humans are estimated to
have been in North America for
at least 14,000 years, Samuel
said. The oldest site is Oregon’s
Paisley Cave, where researchers
found excrement with human
DNA.
The new find is named Ek-
gmowechashala zancanellai,
after retired Bureau of Land
Management
archaeologist
John Zancanella, who found a
single tooth in the Sheep Rock
Unit in 1997. Park staff, led by
then-paleontologist Ted Fremd
recognized it came from an un-
usual animal, and returned to the
site many times before finding
two more teeth in 2011. In 2015,
Samuels found a jaw fragment
at the same spot, and the teeth
matched.
Fossils of a similar le-
mur-like animal have been
found in South Dakota, but they
are a “sister species” and not
identical, Samuels said. The Or-
egon fossil is similar to primate
fossils from Thailand and Paki-
stan.
Samuels said erosion may
eventually reveal more remains.
Two more teeth found at a near-
by site shows the lemur’s pres-
ence wasn’t a fluke.
“If we keep going back over
the years we might find more,”
he said. “More will erode out.
Most likely there is more there.”
Located in Eastern Oregon
in proximity to the towns of
Mitchell, Fossil and Kimberly,
the three scattered units of the
national monument provide one
of paleontology’s best records of
North American mammals over
a 40 million year period.
Over the past 150 years, sci-
entists have found fossils of an-
imals ranging from saber-tooth
cats and mastodons to rhinos,
giant pigs, camels and three-
toed horses.
The fossils are contained
within multiple layers of ash de-
posited over the eons by erupt-
ing volcanoes, including the
Cascade Range as Mount Hood
and other peaks arose. The lay-
ering allows scientists to date
fossil finds and trace the evolu-
tion of animals.
Plant fossils abound in the
area as well, and tell a remark-
able story. Before the Cascades
rose and intercepted rain clouds
from the Pacific Ocean, casting
what’s called the “rain shadow”
on now bone-dry Eastern Or-
egon, the area was wet enough
to grow redwood trees. Fos-
sils of Metasequoia, the “dawn
redwood,” are among the most
common found in the area.
can or aboriginal people of Can-
ada, like Marshall, who hails
from Nova Scotia, and some are
Mainers. Reliance on migrant
farming grew with the growth
on the crop, which exploded
from 20 million pounds per year
in the 1970s to 50 or 60 million
pounds per year ten years ago
and 90 million pounds per year
now, said Yarborough.
This year, migrant farm-
ers will pick some 90 million
pounds of the wild blueberries
— praised for their benefits as
an anti-oxidant rich food — that
grow only in Maine and parts
of Canada. They will form
communities of their own that
revolve around hubs like the
Blueberry Harvest School and
ethnic restaurants such as the
migrant-founded Vazquez Mex-
ican Takeout. There’s even an
end-of-harvest Wyman’s Cup
soccer competition for pickers
at Jasper Wyman and Son.
The increasing harvests
came alongside the develop-
ment of mechanized harvesters
— heavy pieces of machinery
operated by a driver — which
started to play more of a role in
the 1990s, workers in the indus-
try said. Some blueberry oper-
ations have gone almost com-
pletely mechanized, and more
are headed in that direction, Yar-
borough said.
The trend means less work
for migrant farmers who have
long relied on blueberry sea-
son as a chance to earn several
hundred dollars per week in the
summer. The season typical-
ly begins in late July and ends
around Labor Day.
“It’s really gone down con-
siderably,” Yarborough said.
“It’s subject to drop as we pro-
duce more and better machines.”
Growing mechanization is
also making the nature of the
remaining work more difficult.
Rakers are left to work in parts
of the fields that the mechani-
cal harvesters can’t reach, like
ditches and uneven land.
That makes a form of labor
that already includes repetitive
lifting and bending in the hot
sun even more difficult.
“Our people are sent out
to the gullies,” said Marshall,
who now travels to Maine every
summer to work at Blueberry
Harvest School.
The state has some 44,000
acres of wild blueberries, based
mostly in the rural Downeast
area, and the state relies on the
berries for about $250 million
per year in economic value, of-
ficial said. Blueberries are also
one of the state’s key cultural
identifiers, along with lighthous-
es and lobsters.
Ed Flanagan, chief executive
officer of blueberry producer
Jasper Wyman and Son, said
his business has gone from
about 20 percent mechanized
ten years ago to 70 percent
mechanized today. A spokes-
man for Passamaquoddy Wild
Blueberry Company said the
business has gone from 100
percent rakers just six or seven
years ago to 40 percent mecha-
nized today.
“Things are changing as
more machines take to the
fields in place of hand crews,”
Flanagan said.
It remains to be seen if the
trend will eventually jeopar-
dize the existence of the com-
munity that has grown around
migrant blueberry farming ev-
ery year. But Briana Mejia, a
raker who has been coming to
work the fields for seven years,
said the trend toward machines
and away from workers is
clear.
“When someone builds a
bigger, better machine that
can do the gullies, what’s go-
ing to happen then?” Mejia
said. “It’s all about making
money.”
Hudson Valley organic farm
produces seeds largely by hand
By MICHAEL HILL
Associated Press
ACCORD, N.Y. (AP) —
Drying corn stalks wilt in late
summer sun as Ken Greene
tours his crops. Calendula
flowers are past bloom and
brown. Melon leaves lay crin-
kled by the dirt. Plants have,
literally, gone to seed.
A perfect picture for an or-
ganic seed harvest.
“It looks like hell now,
but it’s actually good for the
seeds,” said Greene, co-found-
er of the Hudson Valley Seed
Library.
The small business 70
miles north of New York City
makes seeds the old fashioned
way. They are largely plucked,
winnowed and packed by
hand. They sell only heirloom
seeds or varieties naturally
pollinated by the wind, insects
or birds — about 400 choices
like Red Russian Kale, Thai
Basil and Flashy Butter Oak
Lettuce.
Essentially, the Hudson
Valley Seed Library is an or-
ganic seed business cross-pol-
linated with a mission to pre-
serve agricultural diversity.
Greene and his partner
Doug Muller get about half of
their varieties from like-mind-
ed growers, with the other half
grown on a three-acre organic
farm hemmed in by wooded
hills. Flowers, vegetables and
fruit here stay in the field past
their “edible moment,” even if
they shrivel.
On a recent morning,
head farmer Steven Crist
and another worker slowly
progressed down a row of
calendula to retrieve seeds
from desiccated blooms. Col-
lection methods can differ
by plant. Lettuce is threshed.
Tomatoes are pulped and the
gel surrounding the seeds is
fermented. Corn cobs are fed
through a device that strips off
the kernels.
There are some nods to
Mike Groll/Associated Press
In this Sept. 1 photo, Ken Greene, a co-founder of the Hudson Valley Seed Library, poses with
Summer Sunrise Tomatoes in a field of Gift Zinnia in Accord, N.Y. The small business 70 miles north of
New York City makes seeds the old-fashioned way. They are largely plucked, winnowed and packed
by hand. They sell only heirloom seeds or varieties naturally pollinated by the wind, insects or birds.
modernity, like the shop vac-
uum used to help draw away
chaff. But much of the work
here is done like in day of
your great-grandparents, or
even your ancient ancestors.
Crist demonstrated how he
rubs dried pea pods in his
hands over a screen just big
enough for the seeds to fall
through.
“It’s really good to have
them crisp for this part of it,”
Crist said.
Select
varieties
are
spooned into packs with
plant-themed art works on
the front. The eye-catching
packs — which run the gamut
from folksy to surreal — have
become a trademark for the
business.
The business grew out of
Greene’s love of gardening
and what he considers the lack
of transparency in where most
seeds come from. In 2004, he
was a public librarian who
started a novel program in
which patrons could “bor-
row” seeds for planting and
then return seeds produced by
the plants months later. Four
years, later he and Muller
launched the current business.
The for-profit Hudson
Seed Library borrowing pro-
gram is a bit different. About
2,000 people paid $10 to be-
come members who are en-
couraged to all grow one va-
riety they borrow. This year
it was zucchini. The hope is
that they will share the seeds,
return them or even improve
the variety though cross-pol-
lination, as in days gone by.
The goal is to educate and en-
courage seed-saving.
Beyond that, the busi-
ness has about 14,000 retail
customers annually and 250
wholesale accounts through
the likes of garden centers and
museum shops.
The library and like-minded
enterprises are a virtual acorn
compared to the soaring oak
tree of the U.S. seed industry.
Jim Gerritsen, a Maine-based
organic seed grower and
president of the Organic Seed
Growers and Trade Associ-
ation, estimated that there
are 500 to 1,000 commercial
organic seed growers nation-
wide. The number of suppli-
ers has been growing along
with demand from organic
farmers and home gardeners.
“These are the same peo-
ple when they go the grocery
store they want to buy organ-
ic food for their family,” Ger-
ritsen said. “It makes sense to
them that they then want to
search out organic seeds.”
Hudson Valley’s small
scale here fits with their phi-
losophy, though Greene and
Muller are still trying to strike
a balance between sticking to
their seed-saving mission and
staying sustainable.
McDonald’s to switch to cage-free eggs
By CANDICE CHOI
AP Food Industry Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Mc-
Donald’s says it will switch to
cage-free eggs in the U.S. and
Canada over the next decade,
marking the latest push under
CEO Steve Easterbrook to try
and reinvent the Big Mac mak-
er as a “modern, progressive
burger company.”
Under pressure to revive
slumping sales, McDonald’s
has already announced sever-
al changes since Easterbrook
stepped into his role earlier this
year. In March, the Oak Brook,
Illinois, company said it would
switch to chickens raised with-
out most antibiotics. And in
April, it said it would raise pay
for workers at company-owned
stores, which represent about
10 percent of its domestic lo-
cations.
The decision to switch to
cage-free eggs, meanwhile,
signals a growing sensitivity
among customers to animal
welfare issues. That has been
fueled in part by places like
Chipotle that have made animal
welfare standards part of their
marketing.
Animal welfare activists
also have long called for the
banishment of battery cages,
which confine hens to spaces
so small they’re barely able to
move. For at least the past 10
years, the Humane Society of
the United States has pressed
McDonald’s to switch to cage-
free eggs at the company’s an-
nual shareholders meeting, said
Paul Shapiro, the group’s vice
president of farm and animal
protection.
“It’s a real watershed mo-
ment,” Shapiro said of the deci-
sion by McDonald’s. “It makes
it clearer than ever that cages
just do not have a future in the
egg industry.”
While cage-free doesn’t
mean cruelty-free or access to
the outdoors, Shapiro said it’s a
substantial improvement from
battery cages.
Regulatory changes could
also be making it easier for
companies to agree to change.
In California, a law now re-
quires that egg-laying hens be
given enough space to stretch,
turn around and flap their
wings.
Among the companies that
have said they will switch to
cage-free eggs are Subway and
Starbucks, although neither of
those chains has laid out a time-
line for when they expect the
transition to be complete.
Already, McDonald’s says it
buys about 13 million cage-free
eggs a year in the U.S. But that
is still less than 1 percent of the
2 billion eggs it uses annually
to make menu items such as
Egg McMuffins. Overall, only
about 6 percent of the nation’s
egg-laying hens are cage-free,
according to the United Egg
Producers. Chad Gregory, CEO
of the industry group, said he
expects that figure to climb.
Marion Gross, senior vice
president of the North Amer-
ican supply chain at McDon-
ald’s, said the company is
working with its existing egg
suppliers to convert housing
systems for hens. Gross said
she thinks the change will be
“truly meaningful” to custom-
ers.
“They know how big we
are, and the impact we can
make on the industry,” Gross
said.
McDonald’s is also likely
to increase its egg purchasing
over time; starting Oct. 6, the
company plans to offer select
breakfast items all day in the
U.S.
AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File
In this file photo, cars drive past the McDonald’s Golden Arches
logo at a McDonald’s restaurant in Robinson Township, Pa.
McDonald’s says it will switch to cage-free eggs in the U.S. and
Canada over the next decade, marking the latest push under CEO
Steve Easterbrook to try and reinvent the Big Mac maker as a
“modern, progressive burger company.”