LMAC 65: Harvesting Tobacco and Children in the Fields

My collage is neither fantastical nor realistic. The plants are tobacco plants, but tobacco plants don't bud until they are mature. And the field workers have no receptacle in which to place their produce. So I guess the collage style is realistic but the story it tells is not literal.

I very much enjoyed working with @shaka's photo this week. It was, as usual, brilliant. Here is the original:

The Template Picture Offered by @shaka

Of course, after making my collage, I had tobacco on my mind and so I learned a little about tobacco harvesting.

Life in a Tobacco Field

Tobacco is a highly profitable cash crop. This is true for large and small farmers. In order to increase profitability, labor costs must be kept as low as possible. The saving may be achieved through mechanization or through the use of cheap labor. Child labor is cheap, and sometimes even free.

Tobacco Hut, Where Leaves are Hung and Dried

Image credit: Herzi Pinki. Used under CC license 1.2 or higher

According to Human Rights Watch, children work during some stage of tobacco production in many countries around the world. Even in the United States, where child labor laws are believed to be strong, regulations are relaxed for agricultural workers. A story in the Atlantic Magazine explains how farmers are able to evade child labor laws in tobacco fields:

"The Fair Labor Standards Act makes exceptions for many small farms, meaning they can hire children at any age—an exception that many family farms have relied on to run their businesses."

On larger farms, with parents' permission, children as young as 12 may work.

While much of farm work today is mechanized, tobacco is still harvested by hand in many places.

Child labor in tobacco fields is not limited to the United States, of course. Human Rights Watch explains how farmers in Indonesia also frequently do not operate in compliance with that country's child labor laws.

Indonesia is the fifth largest tobacco producer in the world. On small tobacco farms, especially, "children often work alongside their parents and neighbors, harvesting and carrying tobacco leaves and preparing them for curing."

The organization Unfair Tobacco reports that child labor in tobacco production occurs also in Malawi, Brazil and other countries.

Tobacco Cultivation in Malawi

Image credit: Attribution: Wouter van Beek. CC license 4.0

Hazards of Tobacco Harvesting

A 2014 article in NeuroTechnology reports an increased incidence of minor psychiatric disorders among workers who harvest tobacco. Researchers attribute this increase to pesticide exposure, and green tobacco sickness episodes. According to the NueroTechnology article, there is a linear association between green tobacco sickness episodes and mental health disorders.

Green tobacco sickness is caused by nicotine poisoning. When leaves are wet, the nicotine is more readily absorbed through the skin and the danger of poisoning increases.

Among the dangers presented to people who harvest tobacco, including children, are:

"Skin rash, allergic reactions, breathing difficulties, vision impairment, chemical poisoning, liver damage, nervous diseases and infertility due to contact with chemicals such as fertlizers and pesticides"

Tobacco Field in Laoac, Pangasinan, Philippines

Image credit: Judgefloro. Public domain

Topping

Tobacco Buds

Image credit: User: Dominik Haenni. CC license 3.0

The plants in my collage have flowers on them. That's partly because the flowers are pretty and add color to the picture, but mostly because tobacco plants produce buds. It takes energy for a plant to maintain the buds, so growers snip off the flowers in order to direct all the plant's energy into leaf growing.

Snipping of the buds is called 'topping'. This has traditionally been done by hand but now can often be done mechanically on large farms.

Mechanical Tobacco Topping

My Collage

As the granddaughter of a farmer, I responded intuitively to this week's template photo. Although my grandfather grew edibles, such as apples and berries, @shaka's photo made me think of tobacco.

I found a tobacco plant with buds on Pixabay:

And I found a tobacco plant without buds in this Pixabay picture by sarangib:

I found the drying hut on Unsplash, in a photo by Jukka Heinovirta:

I needed a background that suggested midday rather than dusk. This I found, once again, on Pixabay:

All the figures in the collage were derived from pictures I'd made a few years ago. These are crudely rendered, but were born of nostalgia and attempts to capture memories. Source pictures from which the excerpts were taken:

The one time I picked strawberries on my grandfather's farm. The figure in yellow is me.

Tractor and rider:

Kneeling blue figure in the center of my collage inspired by a memory of my brother hunting a squirrel and bringing it home for dinner (sombrero courtesy of Paint3D):

Three figures in the background inspired by the one time I caught a glimpse of a dormitory where farm workers lived:

Gimp, Paint 3D, and Paint were used to manipulate all images.

Thank you @shaka for another collage adventure. I've looked at the entries so far on this week's roster. Amazing. Readers of my blog can find the collages at @shaka's blog, or at the LMAC blog.

LMAC is growing. We have a school, taught by @quantumg, and a Discord channel. Try your hand at making a collage. It's fun, and there are prizes! Everyone welcome.

Thank you for reading my blog

Hive on!