"MENDOTA, Calif. – On an October day in the midst of harvest season, two farmworkers sat idly in their home in a Central California town that touts itself as 'the cantaloupe center of the world'.
Instead of picking the melons and supervising a work crew, Dora and David Elias of Mendota were unemployed — laid off along with hundreds of others as the cantaloupe listeria outbreak traced to Colorado rippled across the nation.
The pangs were particularly felt here in the top cantaloupe-producing state. Sales of California cantaloupes plummeted, even though their fruit was perfectly safe to eat. Farmers abandoned fields. Farmworkers lost jobs..."
