Field Workers

I am a fourth generation farm girl, actually my farming history from that family can be traced back 300 years. But that particular farm where I grew up I am fourth generation. Today I want to ask others their experiences with a particular part of farming or living or visiting farm communities if they have any.

Originally our farm was for growing vegetables, broom, potatoes, walnuts and other things. We had lovely river flat soil and good rainfall and the first tractor in the district so I guess we were like market gardeners to start with. This was well before my time, the tractor became our object of play or a hands on history lesson when I was a preteen.

When I was little used some of the paddocks for growing tobacco. In Australia there were two places where tobacco was grown. Near Cairns at Mareeba and in an area around Myrtleford in Victoria. There were also some grape vines in the area in Victoria that have now expanded. But each year there were people who came to pick tobacco and I believe people still come to do those jobs where I grew up.

It was great because you knew if you needed some money you could "go and pick tobacco". One year I did tobacco work and I believe I got a small amount of money the three of us did the job together. And another time I got paid properly picking grapes. We had a packed lunch. Recently I was in the town were I shop, though quite a few months back and the seasonal workers had come into town to shop.

There is no way I would be embarassed about picking fruit or helping store tobacco in our community. Everybody helped I suppose and the money was quite a boost. Usually the kids helped at the end of a long day because time wasn't on our side. One of the fondest memories of tobacco was the chains. You know like in the old Western novels of people passing buckets of water to each other? Well we handed tobacco into the sheds at night.

I was probably 16 when I did the grape picking job, my friend from school also picked. I still have fond memories of some very tiny black grapes.

Do you think of picking fruit and seasonal work as a great standby?

A lot of stories came out it yes. Pickers huts I learnt recently some have been made into nice holiday accommodation and they have come up quite well.



Harvesting Tobacco



This post was inspired by an excerpt from the Awakening Earth - Voluntary Simplicity, but the link no longer exists. It was about poverty, and included the origins of the words voluntary simplicity. It was talking about fruit pickers being in poverty from memory.