A December 18, 2018 letter to The Guardian (“Farmers become shopkeepers of crops”), from the son of a farmer in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, cites The Grapes of Wrath to complain that Canadian oil billionaire Robert Irving is abusing family farmers to get his way with local government on land use issues benefiting his agricultural company’s bottom line. “As I read with interest the piece by Shelley Glen [“Serving the greater good”] on Irving’s holding the government and farmers of P.E.I. hostage, capitalizing on our government’s fears and because they believe they are indispensable,” writes Bruce Macewen, “I’m reminded of the words of John Steinbeck in his 1939 masterpiece ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and how chillingly prophetic his words were and are.” The passage from Chapter 19 of Steinbeck’s novel quoted in the letter describes how “farming became industry” in America, dispossessing families of “Irish, Scotch [and] English German” immigrants going back generations, like those on Prince Edward Island. According to a South Florida business website that describes Irving’s family as Maine’s largest landowner and “one of North America’s most secretive business dynasties,” Irving recently paid $11.2 million for an estate in Wellington, Florida, a wealthy enclave located midway between Mar-a-Lago and Belle Glade, a farm community where Big Sugar is king.
Photo courtesy Prince Edward Island Potato Board
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