On pests and other things

Shavuot, the most recent Jewish holiday is known, among others, as the Festival of Reaping; the time in which the first crops were traditionally brought up to the Temple in Jerusalem. I won't get into the technicalities of it, since I have little knowledge and possibly even less interest in the subject, but you can read more about it here. I spent Shavuot (this past Wednesday) up north on my uncle's kibbutz. The kibbutzim are very well known for having pretty elaborate Shavuot festivities, so after a dairy-filled meal, my cousins and I, along with assorted offspring, went to see the ceremony in the afternoon.

I hadn't been to one of these things since... well, since I stopped living in a farming community when I was 13. Looking at it today, I can say that the target audience for these types of ceremonies is aged between 2 and 10. Since my cousins all have little kids these days, we had quite the crew in attendance.

The setup for the ceremony was as follows: At the edge of a large, plowed field, were "bleachers" constructed of huge bales of hay. In front of them was a flat area, probably about 20 meters wide, for people to sit on the ground or on blankets. This area was roped off at the front. Beyond the rope were 20 more flat meters, and past them was a "stage" - a large tractor wagon decorated with bales of hay and flowers. The MCs stood on the stage and narrated the ceremony.

Quite naturally, parents with very small children sat up front on the patch, behind the rope, so that their kids could have a good view, and also so that they could participate in the part of the ceremony in which the children bring their own "crop baskets" to "Jerusalem" (i.e. the stage).

I sat along with my cousins and their kids (aged 6 months to 4 years) right up front, by the rope.

The reason for all of this setup has to do with what ensued; the "artistic" component of the ceremony. Which was MORTIFYING.

The artistic portion of the ceremony was an illustration of the workings of the kibbutz orchard, which is apparently one of the more profitable crops for the kibbutz. The "show' consisted of a guy up on stage describing the various stages of growing and then reaping oranges, accompanied by a "comical" demonstration of the process, which is as follows:

1. Planting small orange trees - two boys came right up to the rope with a branch of an orange tree, dug up a small hole in the ground and "planted" the tree.

2. Watering - a boy came over with a watering can, pouring some water around the "roots".

3. Fertilizing - a tractor drove up, carrying a "tanker" (imagine the big gasoline tankers you see on big trucks on the highway, smaller in scale), and "fertilized" the plant by spraying it with water from the tank. As an attempt at humour, the spraying wasn't reserved to the plant alone, but rather to the entire front row of the audience (the one with all the little kids, I'll remind). At this point I turned to my cousin's husband and asked: "Do you suppose someone went in there and scrubbed out all the fertilizer remnants before they sprayed us just now?" to which he replied with a grunt, while holding his 6-month-old son: "I doubt it."

4. Spraying with pesticides - lather, rinse, repeat of stage 3, but this time with a different looking machine. It didn't have a tanker, but it still sprayed the audience and again, I very much doubt anyone cleaned the pesticide remnants before taking it on "the show".

5. Shake the fruit from the tree - a big machine with a clamp apparently drives up to the tree, shaking the fruit to the ground (or containers, I suppose). To illustrate how well the machine works, they had the driver drive up to one of the young boys participating in the show (a teenager, I think), and pretend to shake the piss out of him while he pretended to hold his penis in a pissing stance. After that hilarious bit, the clamp pulled the plant out of the ground and drove off, concluding this lovely display.

No, I did not make ANY part of this up. I still have to pinch myself to convince myself that it actually happened.

What mortified me in that HORRIFIC display was that (a) Welcome to 2007, a time when almost everyone in the world is concerned with the environment and the damage humans inflict upon it. Do you really think it's NECESSARY to share with the world that stage about the pesticides, and moreover, do it so gleefully? I mean, yes, I hate bugs and all, but no, I probably WON'T ever purchase your produce again, and I'm strongly debating whether to ever purchase non-organic produce, while I'm at it; and (b) HELLO? WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SPRAYING BABIES WITH FERTILIZER AND PESTICIDES, YOU IMBECILS?

I left that thing angry. Angry at the idiots who allowed that display; angry at myself for years of not really caring about the crap I put into my mouth and all the damage it does to the planet long before then; angry at this country, where the concept of organics is about as foreign as the concept of peace.

It's unfortunate though, that while fruits and vegetables are an essential part of any healthy diet, the only kind I can put in my mouth are covered with the crap with which those idiots were only so happy to spray me. It's a catch-22, really. I'm truly trying to be a lot more conscientious about the environement and about my own eating habits, but the only way to "improve" them is to take in the unhealthy bi-products of the crappy process within which my food is cultivated. Being vehicularly-challenged, I don't even have the option of trying to find organically-grown produce (which is rather reminiscent of the whole recycling issue I talked about a few days ago).

I'd love to start my own little garden of home-grown, organic produce, but I haven't got anywhere to do it yet. Honestly - what's a greening-minded girl to do, living under such conditions? Here's an intersting story about someone who found a way to live a relatively organic life, and who also initiated a rather large-scale composting and organic lifestyle within his community. I've been to his moshav, visiting a friend who owns organic lime and avocado orchards. I applaud him for recognizing that he was part of the large mechanism that contributed to damaging the environment and upon that realization, taking the steps necessary to try to turn the scales. I hope that the small steps I'm taking will lead to the same direction.

Posted by raptorgirl at May 26, 2007 02:46 PM