On Friday July 15 the BLAST interns took a trip to Canton Massachusetts. We visited Red Tomato, an organization devoted to helping local farmers survive in the current food system. Upon entering Red Tomato’s building we found ourselves in a cool room, with walls adorned with salad packaging, farmers’ pictures, and various images of farming. We sat down at table and Angel and Lynn introduced themselves. Angel Mendez is the logistics coordinator, and Lynn Colangione is the director of development. They gave us thorough introduction to Red Tomato.

Michael Rozyne founded this non-profit in 1996, and since then the role of Red Tomato has changed. In Red Tomato’s first year the organization trucked the produce from outlying farms to their central warehouse, and from there trucked it to supermarkets. This proved to be too expensive, so the company has changed to coordinating trucking to the central warehouses of supermarkets. Red Tomato’s products are sold in ten different supermarket chains. Today Red Tomato works with thirty growers in the northeast, most of whom use integrated pest management, a method of farming which uses minimal pesticides. Each farmer brings his or her produce to a central drop point in the areas, usually a farm. Red Tomato hires a trucker to bring all the produce at the drop point to the supermarket’s central warehouse. Angel and Lynn explained to us that their farmers were missing a method of distribution, and that the farmers could not give supermarkets the steady flow of produce that the stores have come to expect.

Red Tomato also markets watermelons in the northeast from seven of co-ops in the Federation of Southern Cooperatives (FSC). The FSC is made up of thirty-five member co-ops, and includes twelve thousand African-American farmers. These farmers have faced many obstacles including discrimination at the hands of the USDA. Red Tomato trucks watermelon to the northeast before the watermelons in the region are ready, and help the FSC get good prices.

Red Tomato’s work has helped keep many family farmers in business, and their continuing work is supported by grants and donations. Although Angel expressed a desire for Red Tomato to be financially viable, he said that in this economy it is not possible. Red Tomato is continuing their hard work, and is currently looking into fair trade bananas. I learned about the way in which medium sized farms are being pushed out of business; they can’t afford to truck their own produce, and must compete with large scale industrial farmers from all over the country. I was glad to see Red Tomato provide an opportunity for traditional farmers to survive in an age where corporations seem to own nearly all of our food supply. Angel and Lynn were straight forward and interested in making change without being unrealistic, their solution appeared to be suited for a future where farmers can live well.