Philobiblon

…for, as I’ve been reading in Fresh: A Perishable History, there’s quite a story behind their journey to your plate.

They are “too perishable to spend long in transit, yet too expensive to produce in the countries that consume them. The United States imports most of its supplies from Central and South America (Guatemala and Peru count among the major producers), while Europe counts on its former African colonies. A few Southeast Asian countries export baby vegetables to both the East and the West.”

Growing them requires a huge amount of dedicated, careful labour. “The haricot vert, for example, must be protected against wind and hail, watched and pruned so that it does not grow crooked, and harvested at precisely the right time. Even a 24 hour delay and the bean grows too big and fat.”

So, author Susanne Freidberg explains: “Some of the highest-value crops are produced in some of the most unlikely places – places that would not seem the logical choice if delivering freshness were the sole priority. Burkina Faso, for example… it’s stuck in the middle of West Africa’s drought-prone Sahel and is one of the poorest nations on earth. Refrigeration is scarce, as are paved roads.

“As a former colony of France, though, Burkina Faso has both direct flights to Paris and nearly a 100-year history of growing food to French tastes. Growing haricot vert for French colonials used to be a form of forced labour. Since the early 1970s it has been the country’s most important ‘non-traditional’ export crop produced by small farmers around a scattering of donor-funded irrigation projects. When all goes well, it’s a much more profitable crop than cotton, the country’s biggest foreign-exchange earner.

“Yet things often don’t go well. …some of the major production zones are several hours from the airport in Ouagadougou, the capital city. The country’s green bean merchants targeted these regions not just because they had irrigation but also, paradoxically, because they were remote. Close to the city, farmers can grow cabbages and tomatoes for the urban market. ‘It’s difficult to find people who’ll work as hard as the haricot vert requires,’ said one trader. ‘So I go farther out to find quality.’ …If a truck breaks down, or a plane arrives a few hours late, the beans wither. At that point, they are worth less than the cardboard cartons they travel in. It’s not uncommon for severaltons of produce to perish on the runways. Farmers usually bear the brunt of the losses…”
(pp.193-5)