Search

The article presents information on several Chinese farmers who are growing crops in the Silicon Valley, California. Bob Kuang owns a greenhouse in the region, where he grows 20 varieties of vegetables for sale. Wing Mok is a third-generation farmer in the San Francisco Bay Area, who grows flowers. It is stated that most of the Chinese farmers here own their land; and the Chinese have been in California for a long time after they began immigrating in the 1850s.

The article focuses on the issue regarding the sterilization of fields by growers of leafy vegetables in the central coast area of California as a measure against outbreaks of food-borne diseases. Corporate buyers of leafy vegetables made a tough new standard after an Escherichia Coli (E. Coli) outbreak in 2006 was traced back to tainted spinach. Inspectors and buyers have pushed farmers to cut down trees, rip out wildlife habitat and put up fences because native vegetation and waterways for wildlife are considered as a threat by corporate food chains. This has created a large impact on farmers because even though hedgerows appear untidy next to orderly rows of lettuce, they protect the crops from soil erosion and house helpful critters that destroy crop-eating caterpillars.