From Communist To Corporate

life on an apple plantation now and before

The soil on which we walk can often tell interesting stories we miss out very easily. Such is the case with an apple plantation I worked on recently. Located at the outskirts of the Eastern German city I live in, 250 hectares of land are cultivated with apple trees here. These trees yield between 500 and 3500 tonnes of apples per year, depending on whether frost has taken its tribute during the blossoming period or not. Since the entire yield is nowadays delivered to a juicing company, this fluctuation isn’t as devastating as it would be in a privately owned farm. But let’s look at the beginnings of this secluded spot of nature in the midst of an urbanized area.

Communist times

It is the 1950ies in the former Soviet zone of Germany. The post-war hassle is slowly coming to rest. People are taking up work again, families reunite or depart from each other, some will never see their loved ones again. The newly established communist state of the Democratic Republic of Germany is now cut off phisically and economically from the rest of the world. As such, it needs to secure its food supply as much as it can on its own. One of the measures taken is to set up vegetable and fruit farms at the outskirts of the cities.

During the 9’o clock coffee break, my co-workers tell me about life on the farm during communist times. The typical German “coffee” these dear colleagues offer me isn’t exactly what I would call good coffee. But after working outside in the cold it is perfect for warming up the cold fingers. And listening to their stories, I almost don’t realise the break is already over some minutes later.

In the communist tradition, the farm is set up as an LPG (a communal farm owned by the state) in the 1950ies. The 200 workers employed here do not have any rights to decide about business matters, and the working scheme is tight. It means working up to 7 days a week during harvest time. On the other hand, work on the farm guarantees a regular income and an ordered life for the employees. Some would like to call this the “good old times” if it weren’t for the many oppressions this system brought with it. “Enemies” of the state were spied on and often brutally taken prisoners.

The transition

The fall of communism and of the Berlin wall announced a new era, as East and West Germany reunited. LPG owned land was either given over to their former owners or redistributed. In the case of the apple plantation, it was handed over to a farmer and businessman. For some decades, he continued to grow the business, establishing a small shop at the plantation, selling apples to a jucing company and manning a stand at farmer’s markets in the city. Just as all the other German fruit growers did, he mainly employed Polish workers for the harvest. Not many Germans are willing to work at the wages commonly paid for the job. And fruit orchards take up particularly much handiwork. It remains this way even to this day, so I got to know some dear Polish colleagues here. I even learned some of the Polish “apple picking jargon”, as well!

Then, two years of bad harvest came in a row. Due to some mistakes in the running of the plantation the owner had to sell the business before retiring. After almost three decades of private ownership of the farm, an interesting potential buyer showed up. One of the largest supermarket chains in Germany wanted to buy the farm. In addition, the corporation bought a neighbouring apple plantation, as well as a local juice company. The three businesses were merged into one, the production switched from conventional to organic. In this way, the corporation secures its own supply of apples and juice, from tree to packaging.

New paths

One Monday, I’m shown around the impressive juice factory, located just a few kilometres from the plantations. I have to admit I was surprised to learn that around 80 million litres of juice are produced here yearly. They are then distributed all across Germany and some parts of Europe. But only the apple juice, which makes up around 30% of juice production, is produced at the factory itself. Of course, the apples from the plantation I worked on make up only a fraction of the apple needed for all the juice. Still, who would have thought that the apples for the organic juice I buy at the local supermarket grow right in my city? Regional production paths are sometimes not that obvious.

Still, if the harvest in the local plantations is below average, organic apples need to be imported from elsewhere. Sometimes from even as far as Hungary… whether this can still be described as local and organic, one must judge by himself. The benefit of such corporate production is certainly that the apple juice is available at very cheap prices for consumers.

Steadiness and change

Back to the apple plantation again. I help out my colleague in preparing the apples for the tiny farmer’s shop. Later, I will be out at the plantation picking apples. As I chat with the workers about past and present times at the plantation, I discover that not much has changed for them, really. They are still picking apples from the same trees. Still, they are walking the same ground. In communist, in private and in corporate times. It’s just that some hierarchical levels have been added above. In order to make a decision on whether to buy a certain machine or not, some mailboxes and offices more are involved now. It can take the company up to a year to decide finally on taking any new directions. The stands at the farmer’s markets have ceased to be, too. They just didn’t pay off economically. To the happiness of the local population, the shop at the plantations is still running. Being part of such a large corporation, though, this is rather a matter of preserving tradition than of generating income.

The human compound

In the face of all changes that were and will be coming, one thing remains: the human stories. At times happy, at times heartbreaking, it is these stories that really make up any company or society. Even with all the ever more sophisticated machines, it is still human intelligence and emotion that keeps running businesses, farms and families. The two weeks I have worked on this plantation don’t seem like a lot of time. But working together as a team 8 hours a day and talking between apple trees really connects people. I heard some of their stories. They heard some of mine. In the end, this is what makes up much of the beauty of working in agriculture, just as in any other field.

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In the next article, I will take you to the beauty of the natural world I encountered on this farm. Biodiversity is in decline partly due to agriculture. So I was very curious to find out about the wildlife on this “monoculture”. In next week’s article, see for yourself what I discovered!