Sunburn, Backache And Fun On Tobacco Farms

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30294, 21 November 1963, Page 2

Sunburn, Backache And Fun On Tobacco Farms

tB V

P.A.S.

About this time each year the township of Motueka starts to arm itself for the annual summer invasion. Hundreds of casual workers converge on the surrounding orchards, hop gardens and tobacco farms. Men and women come from Australia and all parts of New Zealand, seeking a sunny, working holiday or just another job.

A great many go as an experiment or as part of a working holiday. After an initiation of broken finger nails, sunburn, backache and a solid diet of rock ’n roll music, they find it can be a lot of fun.

On a tobacco farm, the season for casual labourers starts with the ritual called “pulling weeds.” You spend most of the eight working hours moving, doubled over, down the rows, Jmd the rest of the time praying for rain. You can also spend the eight hours armed with a push hoe.

Jjßterallmg is one of the major jobs on a tobacco farm, and occupies the days when there ic no harvest. It entails removing the lateral leaves from each plant, so that the tobacco leaf proper can ripen. tn a good season, harvest days average about four a week. On farms where there is no mechanical harvester, or the fairly new tying machine,' the work is done by hind. The men work in the paddocks picking bundles of leat and laying them on trailers, which are taken into thh- sheds.

On one farm there might be six women in the shed, working solo or in pairs at stands round the trailers. The stands support sticks to which the', leaf is tied in bundles, or hands." As each stick is flped. it is hung in the kilns for drying. Certain types of tobjcco are air dried —tied outdoors, hung in a dry place arjd left to dry naturally. Tying tobacco at top speed

is an acquired art, and some become expert. Some employers offer an excellent bonus scheme, paying extra for a more than a fixed amount of sticks tied each harvest day.

None of the work on a tobacco farm is irksome if there is a good “gang.” There is something appealing about the casual atmosphere of working outdoors, handling plants, and chatting with your neighbour at the next stand or the next row.

Grading is the only exception. This is done either at ■ the end of the harvest or ' during the season as the leaf , is dried, and is enough to put ! anyone off smoking for life—though it seldom does. Standing at benches all day, sorting the leaf into its various grades, getting covered with tobacco dust and inhaling the peculiar aroma of raw tobacco—this can be somewhat soul-destroying. Last season was a poor one for both workers and employers. Early gales twice

smashed crops and in some areas caused hundreds of pounds worth of damage. Then rain delayed harvests, and frosts “chilled’’ a lot of tobacco that had not been harvested. It is bad times like these that demonstrate the good relations that exist between worker and employer :in the Motueka-Nelson district. November to Winter On a tobacco farm, a worker can stay from about November to mid-winter. Em. ployers provide bach-type accommodation, which has to pass Department of Health requirements. Fairly typical workers’ quarters have two bedrooms, each with beds, chest of drawers and curtained off wardrobe space: a small kitchen-cum-sitting room; a bathroom with tubs for laundry, and an outdoor, primitive toilet. One North Island woman has worked each summer in the district for eight years. She makes up her year with wool-classing employment in the North Island. She has longer vacations and more money saved to spend on them than the average 40-hour-a-week worker, and has toured every corner of the Dominion. • Another personality is a tobacco grader whose speed is said to earn him up to £5 a day during the grading season each year. There are many who depend on casual labour for a living and go only occasionally to Nelson and Motueka. They work alongside teachers, waitresses, wool-shed hands, office workers and trained nurses.