The invention of the mechanized tomato harvester followed a slightly different pattern than is often seen. Usually, the pressure is first on the engineer to design a machine to harvest a given crop. However, in the case of tomatoes, G.C. Hanna at the University of California, Davis, conceived the idea that machines would harvest tomatoes someday (Rasmussen 3529). So he began developing a variety "able to withstand the rigors of machine harvesting and bulk handling" (Rasmussen 3529). Early efforts showed no great signs of success.
By 1959 however, Hanna had developed numerous strains, "uniform in vine type, concentrated profuse fruit set, maturity, resiliency of fruit, quality characteristics, and the ability to hold for more than 30 days on the vine without deteriorating" (Rasmussen 3530). In 1961 Hanna had developed two varieties, VF 145A and VF 145B, which made the mechanized harvest of tomatoes almost entirely possible.
Just a few years after Hanna began his research, C. Lorenzen, also at the University of California, started work on developing a mechanical harvester. The machine that was finally adopted included four parts: "a pickup mechanism, a fruit and vine separator, hand-sorting area, and a discharge or container loader" (Busch 141). A complete description of the harvester follows:
"In operation, the mechanical harvester pulls the entire tomato vine from the ground and runs it through the machine, removing the fruit which is then hand sorted by workers on the machine. The workers remove the green tomatoes, damaged fruit, and trash that the machine misses as the fruit travels on a conveyor belt. Thus, the machine is properly seen as a (dis) assembly line that has been made mobile to compensate for the necessary spatial spread and fixity of the growing plants" (Busch 141).
By 1962, both the plant and the machine were ready to go. By 1968 it was expected that more than 80 percent of tomatoes grown in the U.S. for processing would be harvested by machine (Rasmussen 3532).
The development of the mechanical harvester would greatly change the demographics of tomato production across the country. Up until this point, the tomato industry had been divided between several eastern and midwestern states, and California. California provided the ideal tomato growing climate, so once the lack of water problem was solved with the opening of huge irrigation systems in California valleys during the first decades of the 20th century, as well as the improvements in the speed of rail transport, the tomato industry began to move west (Busch 139-140). The highly contested water disputes of Hetch-Hetchy and the Owens Valley offer great examples of the social consequences that bringing water to San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively, created.
In 1950, 36 percent of U.S. tomato tonnage was produced in California. By 1975, the amount had risen to 85 percent, leaving many eastern and midwestern farmers either at a loss or with the decision to turn to other crops (Busch 140). Moreover, between 1948 and 1975, tomato consumption per capita in the U.S. rose by 68 percent (Busch 140).
An immediate cause of adopting the mechanical harvester was the termination of the Bracero program in 1965. The program had been authorized by a 1951 amendment to the Agricultural Act of 1949, permitting large numbers of Mexican workers to be "recruited to work in CA for the fruit and vegetable harvests," and then return to Mexico (Busch 140). The program's termination led to an increased incentive to mechanize the harvest, as the availability for hands-on labor had decreased. Phil Ochs and Woodie Guthrie have written songs about the Bracero program and its termination. These can be reached by clicking here. By 1970, five years after the program ended, 100 percent of tomato growers had adopted the mechanical harvester (Busch 140).
Mechanical harvesting played a key role in the shift to California-based tomato production. The high cost and difficult management of large field labor forces was becoming more acute for many farmers, giving them more incentive to adopt the mechanical harvester into their production process. This move reduced the labor time of harvesting one acre of tomatoes from 113 hours to 61 hours, a nearly 50 percent reduction (Busch 140). Initially however, the harvesters left 15-20 percent of the fruit in the fields to rot. The costs had to be weighed, especially for such an expensive, highly specialized piece of equipment that would only be used about two weeks out of the year. Thus, most small farms did not find it profitable to adopt the harvester (Busch 141). Due to the capital-intensive harvester and the fact that the machine cannot be used for any other crop, specialization becomes the most profitable answer to tomato production, forcing smaller producers out of the market. Thus, we see a rapid increase in the size of tomato processing farms in California: in 1956 the average size was 91.1 acres, and by 1975 this number had grown to an average of 361.7 acres (Busch 141). The number of tomato growers consequently decreased from 4,000 before the widespread adoption of the harvester, to less than 700 in 1975 (Busch 141).
Other unintended consequences were ubiquitous with the advent of mechanized tomato harvest. The industry had to be restructured, as new problems would arise, creating increased need of scientists and technical experts for plant breeding, machine engineering, and machine repair. Moreover, the harvester takes with it much more soil than previous methods. This can lead to greater fruit spoilage and damage (Busch 141).
The harvester also requires the landscape to be restructured. The harvester will not work on hills, so the fields must be flat and well graded. Moreover, the rows are recommended to be not less than 600 feet in length, to "minimize turning the large harvesting equipment" (Busch 141).
In the wet summers of the Midwest, the harvester was resisted for a substantial amount of time, as the new machine would bog down in the mud. Widespread adoption would only occur because of a farm worker boycott of the processors led the processors to "g [ive] preferential treatment to farmers who mechanized their harvests" (Busch 142). The climate conditions of the Midwest and the higher loss rate are still sources of reluctance by Midwest tomato growers, as only about 70 percent of the farms are mechanized.
Because fewer people are needed for the tomato harvest, the labor force has also been restructured: "Male Mexican farm workers have been replaced by women from local communities who stand on the harvesting machines. Since these women are from local communities, it is possible that employment may have increased locally at the expense of the Mexicans" (Busch 142). Other interested scholars have debated this claim.