The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

the mandarin oranges are sprayed with preservatives and a coloring agentis brushed on. Finally, as a finishing touch, a paraffin wax solution isapplied and the fruit is polished to a glossy shine. Nowadays fruit isreally "run through the mill."So from the time just before the fruit has been harvested to the timeit is shipped out and put on the display counter, five or six chemical's areused. This is not to mention the chemical fertilizers and sprays that wereused while the crops were growing in the orchard. And this is all becausethe consumer wants to buy fruit just a little more attractive. This littleedge of preference has put the farmer in a real predicament.These measures are not taken because the farmer likes to work thisway, or because the officials of the Ministry of Agriculture enjoy puttingthe farmer through all this extra labor, but until the general sense ofvalues changes, the situation will not improve.When I was with the Yokohama Customs Office forty years ago,Sunkist lemons and oranges were being handled in this way. I wasstrongly opposed to introducing this system to Japan, but my wordscould not prevent the current system from being adopted.If one farm household or co-op takes up a new process such as thewaxing of mandarin oranges, because of the extra care and attention theprofit is higher. The other agricultural co-ops take notice and soon they,too, adopt the new process. Fruit which is not wax-treated no longerbrings so high a price. In two or three years waxing is taken up all overthe country. The competition then brings the prices down, and all that isleft to the farmer is the burden of hard work and the added costs ofsupplies and equipment. Now he must apply the wax.Of course the consumer suffers as a result. Food87