Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Strawberries are big business. In the United States, they are the sixth-highest-grossing crop in the state of California, which produces 88 percent of the nation's favorite berry. Yet the global industry is often criticized for its backbreaking labor conditions and dependence on highly toxic soil fumigants used to control fungal pathogens and other soilborne pests.
Using extensive research on California's nurseries as a model, Wilted tells the story of how the strawberry industry came to rely on soil fumigants, and how that reliance reverberated throughout the rest of the fruit's production system. The once-favorable conditions of plants, soils, chemicals, climate, and laboring bodies that made strawberry production so lucrative have now changed and become a set of related threats that jeopardize the future of the industry around the world.