The mechanical tomato harvester, developed at UC-Davis, ranks as “a genuine breakthrough in the way that scientists thought about agricultural development,” writes Ildi Carlisle-Cummins at Civil Eats. The harvester arrived in California fields at the same time growers worried they were going to lose most of their labor force. And it worked best with a tomato variety bred for a tough skin while being easy to remove from the stem. The new tomato hybrid was bland to the taste but it “landed in foods where it would be seasoned with plenty of sugar and salt,” writes Carlisle-Cummins. She credits the machine with saving the California tomato industry, forcing most tomato growers out of business and indirectly seeding the food movement. Most of the tomatoes grown for use in ketchup and other processed foods are harvested mechanically.
Within five years of introduction, the mechanical harvester was used on nearly every farm, and by one account it kept production in California that would have moved to Mexico. There were “huge social impacts,” says Carlisle-Cummins. The machines were expensive, which encouraged consolidation and soon displaced 80 percent of the state’s tomato growers along with farm workers. Activists sued the University of California, saying it abused research programs that were supposed to help small farmers. While not successful, the lawsuit led to funding for local and, later, sustainable food programs. “In other words, the mechanized tomato harvester may have paved the way for both the industrialization of our food system and California’s local food revolution,” she concludes.