Based on historical trends, and to meet both industry needs and consumer demands, we expect to see new varieties continually developed over time. Businesses have responded to consumer and market demands for fresh, safe and organic products by implementing food safety programs and/or transitioning more lands to organic production. Water and air quality programs have been developed to comply with state regulatory requirements. In the past, growers customarily hired those with expertise in financial and market management; they now also enlist the support of experts in food safety, organic agriculture and environmental quality to assist with farm management. But challenges remain, and management of key agricultural risks — including those for production, finances, marketing, legal and human resources — have become increasingly important. Invasive pests pose significant management and regulatory constraints and increase production, financial and market risks. Two recent examples are light brown apple moth and spotted wing drosophila . LBAM infestations can lead to loss of part or all of the crop because of field closure from regulatory actions, increasing production and financial risk. SWD presents substantial market risk to growers in that its larvae can infest fruit and render the crop unsaleable. Growers minimize the risk of loss from these two organisms with the routine use of PCAs. PCAs monitor fields more frequently than growers alone would be able to do, draining pots identify pests and recommend actions, for example, the use of pheromone mating disruption for LBAM and field sanitation for SWD.
Since their introduction, the soil fumigants CP and MB have unquestionably contributed to the expansion of the berry industry. However, the full phaseout of MB as a pest management tool — it will no longer be available for use in berry production after 2016 — presents both production and financial risks. While a substantial research commitment has been made to finding alternatives to MB, nothing has yet come close to offering the same level of protection from the large-scale loss to soil pathogens or the gains in productivity associated with the application of CP and MB as synergistic preplant fumigants. We anticipate that the berry industry will adapt to the MB phaseout by using alternative fumigants and preplant soil treatments, but these are likely to carry a higher level of risk for berry production in the short term and may lead to a decrease in planted acreage and production. However, this may also stimulate an even more robust research agenda directed towards soil borne diseases and plant health to minimize disruption to the industry. Reliance on fumigants as the primary strategy for pest management is almost certainly a thing of the past. Instead, adoption of integrated approaches, including alternatives to fumigants, to manage diseases, weeds and other pests will be key to sustaining berry production over the longer term . Labor is also a current and significant challenge for growers of berry crops. Social and demographic changes in Mexico — the source of a majority of the area’s agricultural labor — have resulted in markedly lower immigration rates into the United States, a shrinking labor pool and upward competition and wage pressures for the agricultural workers who remain . In recent years, growers have reported difficulty in securing and retaining sufficient numbers of workers to ensure timely and effective farm operations. The lower production figures seen in strawberries in 2014 may in part have been the result of an insufficient labor pool from which to draw . However, no known regional employment or wage data are available to specifically document this. Some growers minimize labor risk by paying higher wages and providing year-round employment when possible. However, these strategies can be difficult for some businesses to justify economically.
Arguably, the area’s berry industry, and agriculture more generally, increasingly face political risk. Immigration legislation that may assist with the current labor challenge languishes at the federal level, with major policy changes unlikely before 2017 . Farming practices are under ever more scrutiny by consumers, local municipalities and state and federal agencies. Soil fumigants and pesticide use have been the focus of many intense debates and discussions, especially in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. At the time of this writing, several new regulations related to pesticide application notifications, pesticide and fumigant application buffer zones and worker safety have been proposed by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency but have not yet been finalized. It is anticipated that implementation will begin in 2017, with full compliance required in 2018. And, as California struggles through a fifth year of drought, water use, quality and cost has become a more robust part of the local, state and federal discourse, with directives issued and new legislation proposed. Compliance with each new directive or regulation presents production and logistical challenges for growers and can be costly to manage. Although it is unlikely that regulatory pressures will lessen in the future, there is every expectation that growers will continue to adjust business practices to meet or exceed any new requirements or standards. The economic sustainability of individual farming operations and the area’s berry industry in total will ultimately be impacted by and continue to evolve with the ever changing business environment, and by an array of risks and challenges.Agriculture in California is a growth industry. In fact, the nearly twenty billion-dollar business was recently characterized by the Los Angeles Times as one of the few healthy parts of the state’s wounded economy .
California’s expanding farm economy is fueled by a healthy and growing worldwide appetite for fresh fruits and vegetables, and is capacitated by its ability to supply markets year round thanks to a benign climate, a reliable irrigation infrastructure, and an effective corporate structure. The production of high-value yet labor-intensive specialty crops has increased both farm revenues and farm employment . Recent estimates reveal that nearly one million workers are employed by California farms; that’s twenty percent more than fifteen years ago . The vast majority of these workers, ninety percent, are foreign-born; most come from Mexico. Although a large and growing number of Mexican-origin farm workers have settled permanently in California with their families , many continue to practice old migratory ways by travelling from their home communities in Mexico to farm employment locations in California on a regular schedule . Save a select few, most farm workersóboth settled and migrantóhabitually experience seasonal and intermittent farm jobs and, as a result, must race from employer to employer, from crop to crop, and from county to county in order to enjoy some modest degree of continuous employment and a regular source of income or, more correctly stated, to diminish the deleterious effects of seasonal unemployment and chronic underemployment. Finally, despite the fact that special provisions included in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 allowed many undocumented immigrant farm workers to legalize their presence in the United States, unauthorized immigration continues unabated. Farm-worker dependents who either did not qualify for the special amnesty provisions or who were subsequently imported, and a new wave of aspiring farm workers continue to stock the pool of unauthorized immigrants in the countryside. As a result, California’s farm-worker community contains a substantial and growing number of undocumented migrants and immigrants. Because many farm workers in California lead unconventional lives by, among other circumstances, large plastic garden pots incessantly changing jobs and addresses, maintaining migratory practices, being undocumented and/or harboring the undocumented, and crowding into unusual housing arrangements, they represent a population that challenges conventional data gathering procedures and, moreover, that eludes both efforts and methods specifically designed to identify and enumerate them . Yet, their growing numbers, needs, and problems require that accurate information be collected about them in order to, among other things, design and implement appropriate public policy. This paper focuses attention on one California location, the Santa Maria Valley, where the above-mentioned farm intensification process has taken place and where, as a result, immigrant and migrant farm workers gather to tend and harvest premium fruit and vegetable crops. Although the Santa Maria Valley cannot claim to be fully representative of California’s very diverse agricultural economy, it does serve to highlight some of the major social, economic, and demographic events which are rapidly overtaking the state. The Santa Maria Valley, moreover, is an important point in the itinerary followed by migrant farm workers in their annual trek for farm jobs on the west coast, as well as a preferred site for permanent settlement. Consequently, it offers an excellent opportunity to observe both migrant and immigrant populations, and their interactions. Santa Maria is a rich, alluvial coastal valley located in the northwestern corner of Santa Barbara County, some 160 miles north of Los Angeles. The 260-square-mile area is endowed with excellent natural conditions which, reinforced with a substantial man-made farming infrastructure, yields a bounty of crops year round.
In recent years most of the available farmland has been conditioned to raise a variety of fruits and vegetables, and a plethora of cooling plants, storage facilities, shipping depots, and crop-processing installations have been erected throughout the valley to handle the crops. Farm employment has, consequently, boomed. Table 1 and Figure 1 evidence how farm employment has grown incessantly, almost exponentially, since 1985, doubling numbers for the peak spring and summer employment seasons and growing by at least one-half for the slower winter months. The rapid, unprecedented growth of the Hispanic population reported for two of the valley’s principal population centers reflects, in great measure, the booming nature of agriculture: The cities of Santa Maria and Guadalupe are, respectively, a hub of agroindustrial activity and a farm worker community. Santa Maria’s overall population, for example, grew from 39,685 to 61,284, by 54.4 percent during the 1980-1990 intercensus period. A substantial part of this growth, almost 70 percent, is attributable to Hispanics, who increased in number from 13,281 to 28,014 in the same period of time. Meanwhile, the City of Guadalupe’s 4,546 Hispanics accounted for 83 percent of the city’s 1990 population and were, moreover, responsible for all the city’s reported growth between 1980-1990. Many of the valley’s new inhabitants were, in effect, enticed to settle by the new jobs created by agriculture and related businesses. In the past, however, most farm workers remained in the area only while jobs were available and quickly moved on to other locations as soon as work was completed . As recently as the 1960s, the valley’s principal crop employed a large number of workers but only during relatively short periods of time, to thin and harvest in the spring and fall respectively. Ernesto Galarza describes the valley in the 1950s as a place which relied heavily on bracero labor; up to 30% of all hired workers were actually contracted in Mexico . Until 1964, when the Bracero Program was cancelled, farm workers were not encouraged to settle in the area but, as a matter of course, were asked to return to participate in the forthcoming campaign . In the early 1970s, however, many of the valley’s traditional field crops, including sugar beets, were replaced by more valuable fruit and vegetable crops which not only required a larger number of workers to plant, till, and harvest but also expanded employment seasons considerably. As a result, migrants were for the first time enabled and even encouraged to settle in the valley to provide a constant, stable, and reliable labor supply. At the same time, the flow of migrants increased to satisfy enlarged seasonal demands . Elsewhere we have documented how, when, and to what extent traditional field crops and livestock were overtaken and displaced by specialty fruit and vegetable crops . It is sufficient, for the purpose of this paper, to indicate that while in 1960 more than one-half of Santa Barbara County’s 67 million dollar farm value was generated by a variety of field crop and livestock products, its import dwindled to a mere 11 percent in 1992. Meanwhile, the combined value of fruits and vegetables grew from 40 percent in 1960 to 75 percent of the county’s current one-half billion dollar farm value . In 1960 cattle, lemons, and milk were listed as the county’s top value crops.