Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food

by Dale Finley Slongwhite

One farmworker tells of the soil that would “bite” him, but that was the chemicals burning his skin. Others developed lupus, asthma, diabetes, kidney failure, or suffered myriad symptoms with no clear diagnosis. Some miscarried or had children with genetic defects, while others developed cancer.

In Fed Up, Dale Slongwhite collects the nearly inconceivable and chilling oral histories of African American farmworkers whose lives, and the lives of their families, were forever altered by one of the most horrific pesticide exposure incidents in United States’ history.

For decades, the farms around Lake Apopka, Florida’s third largest lake, were sprayed with chemicals ranging from the now-banned DDT to toxaphene. Among the most productive farmland in America, the fields were doused with organochlorine pesticides, also known as persistent organic pollutants; the once-clear waters of the lake turned pea green; birds, alligators, and fish died at alarming rates; and still the farmworkers planted, harvested, packed, and shipped produce all over the country, enduring scorching sun, snakes, rats, injuries, substandard housing, low wages, and the endocrine disruptors that crop dusters dropped as they toiled.

Eventually, state and federal dollars were allocated to buy out and close farms to attempt land restoration, water clean up, and wildlife rehabilitation. But the farmworkers became statistics, nameless casualties history almost forgot. Here are their stories, told in their own words.

Genres: Nonfiction

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 6, 2014

Reviews

[Robert Larr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great first person stories talking about the human cost of field work around the Lake Apopka area. Also shows some of the racism of the area in the early 1960s and the lack of concern for the workers by field owners.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly important and moving book. If you are in any way interested in environmental justice, ecoanthropology, or the history of Florida or American food systems, please read Fed Up.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book about local food in Florida and surrounding areas. Very informative and eye opening.

[Ken Pham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read book for Floridians. It encapsulates so much horror that black and brown folk have gone through to build up central Florida. The conditions feel so archaic and inhuman that you forget this stuff happened only a few decades ago. Also, the prose is unendingly smooth. It feels like you’re being told a story from a community elder

[Ann Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

With perseverance and a caring heart, Dale Slongwhite has investigated and put a human face on a tragic chapter in this country’s history. It is hard to believe that entire generations of the farm worker population in Florida were callously exposed to pesticides while working to put food on our country’s tables. After hearing about the plight of these people, who are still suffering from life threatening illnesses and lack of medical care, Ms. Slongwhite respectfully, and with an admirable social conscience, spent hour upon hour memorializing the voices of the individuals affected by this incredible disregard for human life. As government and private organizations worked to save Lake Apopka – which had turned green with poison – and the wildlife around it from the long-standing effects of chemical exposure, little was being done to address the tragic fall- out upon the people who had worked the land. Ms. Slongwhite’s interviews with these workers bring to life the most important layer of this abomination – the living, breathing human beings – with emotions and ambitions and families – who were deemed expendable in the pursuit of corporate profit. Ms. Slongwhite shows us the uncomfortable, poignant truth that sometimes shadows our comfortable realities.

[Dan Dundon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will never again walk into the produce aisle of a grocery store and not think about the lives of the workers who harvest our fruits and vegetables. The stories depicted in "Fed Up" are consistently tragic. At first I was disappointed the author had decided to reproduce the interviews with so many workers. I initially felt the stories were merely repeating situations that had already been summarized. However, I realized when I finished the book, the cumulative impact of the stories was devastating. It is incredible so many lives were ruined through the callous disregard for safety by farm owners who indiscriminately sprayed deadly DDT on these fields while workers were in them working to harvest fruits and vegetables. Yes we do have to put up with many government regulations but if we can prevent this tragedy from happening again then the restrictions on free enterprise are worth it. Given the scope of the tragedy it is especially disheartening that Florida's current governor Rick Scott has twice vetoed a small appropriation for a health clinic in Apopka to treat these victims. Perhaps the governor should read this book before he wields his veto pen again.