Diary (16th July 2024)

Same same but different. Another artist-in-residence has begun. No, not just artist-in-residence, but also work: one thing can mean more than one thing. Just as an expat is also an immigrant. But not all migrants are expats.

Starting today, I will be working for three weeks at the Huiberts biologische bloembollen, an organic bulb farmer in the Netherlands. Here, eight Polish women move from Poland to the Netherlands to live and work for eight weeks in the summer. I would have liked to work with them for eight weeks, but because I had an artist-in-residence in Switzerland and also need time to prepare for the ‘Tulip Mania 2’ residency/exhibition at zone2source starting in September, I only work for four weeks.
As the live-in rooms were full, they even provided me with a camper. I am so grateful. The percentage of organic bulbs is said to be 0.22 per cent of the bulb market, but I wonder if 0.22 percent of people have such kindness. I have a feeling that 0.22 per cent would be too low.

What is my question for this artist-in-residence “cum” seasonal labor? I suppose it is: what do I feel when I actually experience the work? In my research so far, I have talked to industrial relations experts about the precarious working conditions of seasonal workers. In Poland, I also heard about the experiences of people who worked in the Netherlands. It is easy to imagine the labour force of seasonal workers being exploited within the economic structure. However, the quality of working conditions varies. In this organic bulb farm, they are given free accommodation and travel, and their wages are above the minimum wage. However, it is a hard job.

I will soon start work at 7.30 in the morning. I am a little worried about whether my body will be able to cope. But if I can’t do this for such a short period, I’m sure I won’t be able to survive. I can’t even evacuate when a disaster happens. People who are forced to move for unavoidable reasons, such as conflict, persecution or disaster – they are also migrants. I live my life thinking, “I will not be like that”. Although the possibility is not zero.

I’m off to work!

Diary (17th July 2024)

My first day’s work is to weed around the dahlia’s bulbs. I start working at 7.30am with a group of women from Poland who have come to work. The coffee machine in the kitchen is out of order, so around 6am I head to the office kitchen for a coffee, where John, the owner of this organic flower farm, is already sitting at his computer screen.

Rows and rows of dahlia bulbs are planted in the field. It is completely different from the image of an ‘organic flower farmer’ or ‘multi-product’ in Japan: ‘organic’ but ‘high-tech’, multi -product but ‘mass-produced’. This flower farmer grows bulbs for many flowers, not just tulips. Together with colleagues, we pull weeds using a ‘weed-pulling car’. In that car, five people inside and three outside, lying on beds arranged so that they lie face down, pull weeds around the dahlia bulbs.

‘Meditative work, isn’t it?’ My friend told me when I told him that I would work at an organic flower farm. ‘Is it really? I thought. The weed-pulling car moves automatically, but if you are even slightly worried about which weeds are which, you can’t pull the weeds out at the right speed. In the beginning, Brygida and Kasha, who were sitting beside me, showed me how to do it by hand imitation, and within an hour I was used to the work itself.

I have never seen so many ladybirds in one day, and I am grateful to think that these weeds are also free from pesticides and chemicals. The work, concentrating only on pulling weeds, dahlia leaves, soil and ladybirds, was rather meditative, as my friend said. Although my thoughts of telling my friend that it was better than meditating in Thailand or Bali, and that I would recommend it, were shattered in the afternoon…

Diary (18th July 2024)

In the morning, I wake up to the roosters crowing at around 5am. I can hear the birds chirping incessantly from outside, and on rainy and windy days, the camper shakes so much that I feel the weather on my skin. Just outside, I see John and Johanna’s garden, which is full of flowers in a variety of colours. It looks messy in a way, but it’s probably very well thought out. It’s so beautiful.

The Huiberts has employees working there, not only Polish seasonal workers, but also three interns and many students from the neighbourhood. Summer is the high season, so there are especially many employees. There is a lot of diversity with people from different countries, with different backgrounds and skills.

I share a bathroom and kitchen with three interns, Fenu and Malya, who are from Madagascar and are studying at Réunion, and Heloisa, who is from Brazil. Heloisa studied agriculture in Brazil and her six months in the Netherlands will be over in August. She learned to drive a tractor to dig up bulbs while staying here. ‘The most important thing I learnt here was resilience and patience – when I came to the Netherlands from Brazil in March, it was cold and dark. You have to do physically demanding work every day. It rains a lot. But there was work that had to be done that day, and you put it into action every day. You can study academia at a university, but there were so many things I could only learn here.’ Heloisa told me in the kitchen. You are too good. I have a sore neck from weeding; will there ever be a day when I can learn RESILIENCE and PATIENCE?

Today I weeded the dahlias again. However, as the number of people who could ride in the “weed-pulling car” was limited, I worked in the morning without riding in the car. It’s so much nicer to pull weeds from the ground without riding the “weed-pulling car”. I thought about the Polish women in the car. In the afternoon I got in the car too and pulled the weeds around the dahlias.

Diary (19th July 2024)

Weeding dahlias for three days in a row. I’m here for a tulip project… but it’s good that they are growing so many different types of bulbs. We use the “weed-pulling car” to pull weeds while lying down and looking at the ground. The same position, looking down, puts strain on my neck and shoulders and chin where the bed part hits me. It starts to hurt as soon as I start working.

3FM radio is blaring inside the “weed-pulling car”. When I first visited this organic flower farm some years ago, I was surprised to hear blasting music playing behind the conveyor belts that sort the organic bulbs into sizes. My preconceived notions of ‘organic farm’ and ‘blaring pop songs’ didn’t seem to match.

Today the reason for this loud music became very clear to me. If you don’t get high somewhere, the physical work is hard. I was annoyed when Bob Marley’s laid-back “Everythings Gonna Be Alright” came on. “Singin’: Don’t worry about a thing, Cause every little thing gonna be all right!” I don’t feel like it’s going to be ‘all right!’ at all. Then it was back to dance music, which was somewhat of a relief.

The seasonal workers from Poland are very serious and do not cut corners. They pull the weed at high speed and with great care, using this “weed-pulling car” which the Dutch female employees don’t like to ride. Neither do I, but I do ride and weed.

Diary (20th July 2024)

Yesterday, I worked on the tulip bulbs. Harvesting, weed and soil removal and sizing the bulbs. The harvesting is being done by John and three interns. It is done using two tractors. One tractor digs up the soil surface, harvests the bulbs and returns the soil back to the land. Behind this tractor, there is a place where people can stand on either side, from where they can remove the soil and weeds that this machine could not remove. The bulbs are harvested through an escalator-like arm into a box behind another tractor that runs alongside.

This tractor, which digs up bulbs buried about four times as deep as they are high, is said to cost around EUR 180,000. If rented, with a driver, it is apparently about EUR 200 an hour. Intern Heloisa drives the truck alongside and John drives the tractor that digs up the bulbs. ‘It’s difficult because it has a box on the back and you have to turn the steering wheel the opposite way to driving a normal car.’ I would also like to try driving, but I am not at all sure if I have the right qualities. I did some soil and weed picking behind the tractor. So much dirt and dust.

These harvested bulbs are sprinkled on a machine to remove the excess soil. The soil and weeds are removed by a huge elevator-type machine, and this process is probably repeated several times, followed by the sizing of the bulbs.

Diary (22nd July 2024)

I spent the weekend in Amsterdam and recovered some of my strength. Seasonal workers from Poland work 10 hours during the week and until 3pm on Saturdays. I decided to work eight hours during the week and get Saturday off. I thought I would have a working environment similar to theirs, but it is not at all the same. These women live for eight weeks in a double room, sharing a shower with seven other people, and on top of that, they are courteous and serious about their work. They also seem to enjoy joking with each other while they work.

‘’Do you work on Saturdays, Kumi?‘’ Brigyda asked me, to which I replied that I was going back to Amsterdam. The main reason was that it was too physically demanding, and I wanted to rest, but I made unnecessary excuses such as ‘my husband says he needs a car’.

In Amsterdam, I met some friends. One of them I met, he works as a consultant in the financial sector. He has great respect for producers who make creations from the land. He is aware of ‘the reality that the rights and wealth of certain groups, e.g. white male workers, are realised through the exploitation of another group, people of colour, women or nature’, and he is also interested in food and art, which makes him interesting to talk to. He said that the working environment in the financial consulting industry is poor, and that it is normal to be mentally ill, working 10/12 hours a day on a computer with a budget of 80 Million Euros and enduring power harassment by supervisors…

I don’t think I’m likely to get mentally ill working at this organic bulb farmer, at least for now. I want to get used to it physically as soon as possible.

I am off to work!

Diary (23rd July 2024)

Last night’s dinner was a Japanese curry I had made in Amsterdam over the weekend and brought with me in Tupperware, so all I had to do was heat it up and that was it. Easy peasy. I had curry and rice with Japanese curry roux. Next to me, intern Heloisa was eating white rice and Feijão, Brazilian black bean stew. Malya and Fenu from Madagascar, eat white rice for every meal like I do in Japan, they cooked Katles, Madagascar potato croquettes. The Polish ladies said they were making Polish food. They are making Kotlet mielony, a minced meat dish, and mizeria, a cucumber and yoghurt salad. All sounds delicious.

I feel a bit more relaxed in the second week. Last week, which started with weeding for the dahlia bulbs, was seriously strenuous, but this week it seems easier. We are sorting out the bulbs at the conveyor belt. In the workshop, Polish radio is playing. I’ll write about the detailed work from tomorrow onwards.

Diary (24th July 2024)

Bulbs, bulbs and bulbs flow before your eyes. To keep up with the speed of the flow, I remove rotten bulbs, weeds and other debris. As I concentrate on this work, I feel as if it is not the conveyor belt in front of me that is moving, but myself. The conveyor belt goes into slow motion, its movement stops and you start moving. My hand follows the bulbs so that I don’t get left behind.

The harvested bulbs are sifted through two types of machines that remove soil and excess roots and weeds. First, thousands of bulbs are placed into a stair-step machine from the top, which sifts out any soil, pebbles, roots, etc. that were not removed during the bulb harvest. The removed bulbs are then transferred to another conveyor belt machine where they are again sieved and sorted by size.

Working alongside the machines, removing soil and roots and sizing the bulbs are part-time students during the summer holidays, live-in seasonal workers from Poland (for eight weeks), Dutch employees and interns.

These bulbs bloom beautifully in the Netherlands. Tulips are symbol of the Netherlands. However, many of the people who work at the site are not Dutch. Here they are Polish seasonal workers. I remember when I visited a tulip cut-flower producer in Poland. Many Ukrainians were migrant workers there.

Diary (25th July 2024)

Quotes from much earlier research because I am tired:

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While researching flower bulbs, I became interested in the situation of migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe in the Netherlands and spoke to a specialist, Karin. She works as an associate professor in labour and gender economics at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Her report “Migrant Labour in Dutch Agriculture: Regulated Precarity” describes the current context in which migrant workers are forced to work long hours for less than minimum wage, and what improvements can be sought. Current employment problems include ‘zero-hour employment contracts’, which stipulate payment only for hours worked and allow workers to be dismissed if there is no work or if they are sick, and ‘package deals’, where labour brokers also provide housing for migrant workers and deduct a disproportionate amount of rent and food costs from the workers’ wages. And this employment problem is structurally supported by consumers who demand cheap goods, and by giant retail chains who are willing to buy produce as cheaply as possible in order to sell their products to these consumers. It concludes that strengthening the union power of migrant workers through awareness-raising and organising is a stepping stone to improving this situation, but it is difficult to challenge the structure behind it, which is to maximise company profits and reduce labour costs. These labour issues are not yet visible from the good employers (farmers) I visit, so this kind of research is very informative and I would like to know more about the current situation.