The senior chief of this cucumber picking crew confided, “we like this work, have our own farms and make good money.” “But,” he continued, “we liked it better when our children could help. They need to learn to work. It could keep them out of trouble. We are proud to be vegetable pickers.”

When we purchase a cucumber, “organic” or “non-organic,” in a retail market, we support a pyramid of entrepreneurs from seed growers to planters, irrigators, fertilizers, pickers, haulers sorters, shippers, sellers.

And imagine how many are involved with packaging and labeling the seeds, making and selling and servicing the equipment, assessing land and collecting wages, handling money at all stages of the process.

Veganomics can make the producer to consumer steps in the process safer, more efficient, possibly lower in cost and permanently sustainable.