Do you know where your Christmas tree comes from?
Monday, December 10, 2012 at 3:24PM by Jennie Wilburn North Carolina is known for its Christmas trees and, therefore, Christmas trees are a very profitable business. Christmas tree production and sales is over a $100 million industry in North Carolina with 5-6 million trees harvested annually. North Carolina is the second largest producer of Christmas trees (after Oregon) and leads US production of the iconic Fraser fir variety. In fact, this year’s White House Christmas tree is a Fraser fir from Peak Farms in Ashe County. Fraser firs grow in the mountains particularly in Ashe, Allegheny, Avery, Watauga, and Jackson Counties in western North Carolina. Growing Christmas trees requires a considerable amount of work, and the people who are hired to this work are often seasonal laborers from the Guest Worker program supported by the North Carolina Grower’s Association. North Carolina has come to depend on the H2A visa program to provide seasonal laborers, the majority of whom are Latino.
Christmas tree production is very labor intensive. It includes planting, mowing, weeding, applying insect & disease control, shearing (or shaping), and packaging for marketing. First, a worker must walk around the mountains and mark which trees will be cut down, after which a crew of 8 men cut down the tree with chainsaws and drag the tree to the sides of the field. Then the bailing process begins, a process in which twine is wrapped around the trees so they are easier to transport. Finally, as many as 600 trees are loaded into trailers and driven to the loading yard to be unloaded, counted and sorted. See this photographic essay for a visual representation of the process.
Farmworkers apply pesticides at a Christmas tree farm. Photo courtesy of SAF (2007)
Obviously this is very difficult, heavy work that occurs in cold, wet conditions. Workers work 12-14 hour days during peak season, stooping down, lifting heavy trees and carrying them in the fierce cold of the North Carolina mountains. Much of the work is seasonal, so the workers must find new work after the holidays. Moreover, there are 25 different pesticides used in Christmas tree farming that can have adverse health effects for workers who apply them, if pesticide standards and trainings are not enforced.
For more on Christmas tree farming, watch this video from SAF fellow Robyn Levine about migrant farmerworkers who live and work on a Christmas tree farm in Boone, NC.
La Vida Diaria / The Daily Life from SAF on Vimeo.
One way to help farmworkers this holiday season is by being a socially conscious consumer and purchasing a Christmas tree that is grown in a sustainable manner, as well as investigating the living and working conditions of farmworkers on farms where your tree is grown. Here is a list of retailers that sell organic and low-spray Christmas tree and wreaths from Toxic Free NC.
Photo credit: Ana Duncan Pardo (Toxic Free NC) at "What Fir! Tree Farm"
If you do choose to use a real tree, be sure to recycle it after the holidays! Some areas offer curbside recycling and most places have free drop-off recycling centers. Here are lists of recycling locations in Durham & Wake counties ; Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough offer tree recycling at the curb as part of regular brush collection.
Or check out some of these alternative Christmas trees that we found via Pinterest. You don’t even need a traditional tree with expensive ornaments—lots of ordinary household items make great decorations!
There are lots of ways to be creative! (Need more?) Let us know on our Facebook what you are doing this Christmas to make a change!
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