The Revolutionary Salad: A critique of neo-liberalist capitalism applied to the EU food production sector

I refuse to recognise the intrinsic value of four letter words. Passing judgments on the quality of words based on their quantitative aspects may be acceptable in certain fields of linguistics but not, I am afraid, in most areas of General Life.
It's like saying someone isn't American because he doesn't have broad jaws. Such aesthetics aspects have no connection to the true quality of the subject. And I'm picking this example as I am befriended with someone who uses jaw width to identify people's nationalities. Incidentally, very successfully.

First week back at uni. A good feeling for the most part. Sometimes panick gets me as I glance at groups of students socialising and looking very integrated and confident, and remember that I myself am supposed to be a mentor for a first semester student as of next week - and not always feeling all that self-assured myself, especially as I had to cancel my last paper. Fortunately, I know a bunch of other students who seem to be in similar phases, some of whom will also be mentors. After all this time, I'm still finding it difficult to accept my own uncertainties.

On the positive side, this semester will be a comfortable interesting research semester. I will be writing my project paper on exploited undocumented workers in the EU agricultural sector (or probably only in Almería, Spain), and writing another paper for another class on a similar issue, but in the States. The two will complement one another nicely. We will not go through desperate scenes of panick as we did in March. It's all planned out.
I will have to put money aside for a field trip to Spain though. I wonder if August or even September is the best time to go to an infernally hot region of the world.

In any case, the numerous issues that had been floating wildly around my head over the last month or so are now slowly falling into order, and I feel I can get to work. This research will combine environmental, economic, social and cultural issues, and link it all to Mr and Mrs Toutlemonde's salad ingredients. The madness of our society conveniently served in a plate.

European agricultural policy has been pushing for decades now for the elimination of small "unprofitable" farms in favour of large ones, encouraging a fast industrialisation process in the sector, leading to growing energy needs (petrol for tractors, wider roads for them, electricity for the milking machinery etc.), as well as unchecked environmental pollution of soils and groundwater. That we all know. In addition however, the growth in power of supermarkets and intermediary buyers forced industrial farmers to be increasingly flexible, to offer the necessary quantity of produce at short notice, preferrably ripe, and most of all cheap. In a situation like that, you can only save money on the back of your workers.
Industrial agriculture destroyed most of the cultural ties that existed between people and the land. Working on a farm is not considered valuable, and if on top of it, the pay is bad, there's really no chance of getting a local working force (thus further disintegrating the social thread in rural areas). So to produce our lettuce and tomatoes, we have to find a cheap, flexible labour force. And this is where the systemic need for undocumented workers comes in. No papers, no choice, easy to threat, and little possibilities to organise. At the same time though, society refuses to accept these "illegal" workers and officially acknowledge that there are an important backbone of our comfortable life.
Geiz macht impotent?