Market Garden - Social Role

Social Role

In some more affluent countries, including Australia and the United States, market gardening is rated as a low social status occupation. It is typically taken up by recent immigrant groups for one or two generations, until they can accumulate capital, language and trade skills. The succession of dominant market garden groups in Australia, for example, was - from the early 19th century Anglo-Celtic, people from German-speaking countries, Chinese, then southern European migrants from Italy and Yugoslavia, then southeast Asian migrant and refugee communities following the Vietnam War, such as the Vietnamese and Cambodians.

Involvement in a market garden lets immigrant groups who otherwise have few marketable skills apart from their labour, become actively involved in the market economy. Benefits are that it does not rely on education or language, it adapts well to providing work for extended family groups, and in large market growing regions even wider community support networks. Sharing of knowledge and experience within communities reduces risks, and supports a network of other trades such as carriers, market agents, and heavy machinery contractors, and contract farm labour. Market-gardening land is typically relatively cheap and allows immigrants to purchase land, often with an accompanying residence, far more readily than in urban settings. However, like all agriculture it risks crop failure, market collapse and competition from industrialised broad-acre farming and 'fresh-frozen' imported produce. Other risks are from hazards such as pesticide use, especially where the market gardeners are not trained in their use or able to read product information. Another consequence is marginalisation of the succeeding generation where they are relied upon as the fittest and strongest to succeed in continuing the farm rather than pursue other ambitions and opportunities.