This total includes H-2A guest workers whose highest earnings were from an agricultural employer. Primary farm workers accounted for over 80% of all workers with at least one job in California agriculture. Another 185,000 workers, or almost 20% of all agricultural workers, had at least one job with an agricultural employer but earned more from a non-farm employer. EDD does not verify SSNs submitted by employers unless the worker applies for UI, which 20% of agricultural workers did in 2016. We do not know how many workers used multiple SSNs in 2016 and how many times several workers shared one SSN, but we did drop from the analysis SSNs used by more than 10 employers, which eliminated one-tenth of 1% of SSNs.Table 1 compares the earnings of a FTE worker with the actual earnings of primary farm workers by commodity in California in 2016. For example, an FTE primary farm worker would have earned $32,316 from all farm and non-farm jobs , but the average annual pay of primary farm workers from all jobs was $16,142, half as much. The implied hourly wage of an FTE worker who was employed 2,080 hours was $15.54. California’s minimum wage was $10.00 an hour in 2016, round nursery pots so the $16,142 earned by primary farm workers reflects a combination of lower hourly wages and fewer hours or weeks of work . A worker employed 2,080 hours in 2016 at the $10.00 minimum wage would have earned $20,800.
Farmers reported to USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service that the average earnings of the workers they hired directly were $13.81 an hour in 2016, so a primary farm worker earning $16,142 would have worked 1,166 hours at $13.81 an hour. Over 40% of FTE agricultural workers were hired directly by crop farms . They had average annual earnings of $34,411 per FTE, equivalent to over $16.50 an hour. The actual earnings of workers whose maximum earnings were with crop employers were $20,540, or 60% as much. An FTE position in animal agriculture paid $37,372, while workers whose maximum earnings were from animal agriculture averaged $30,989, 83% as much as a full-time position or FTE job. More workers are brought to crop farms by non-farm support service firms such as FLCs than are hired directly by crop farmers. A full-time crop support position via an FLC earned $24,589 in 2016, equivalent to almost $12.00 an hour. However, workers whose maximum earnings were with FLCs earned an average $9,026, or 37% as much, which is equivalent to 900 hours of work at the minimum wage of $10.00 an hour or 750 hours at $12.00 an hour. These comparisons of average FTE earnings and average actual earnings for individual workers have three major implications. First, except in animal agriculture, average FTE pay can be a misleading indicator of what most farm workers earn, since most primary farm workers earn less than the $32,300 or $15.54 per hour that is implied by dividing total wages by average employment across all agricultural commodities . Second, the largest categories of workers have the lowest wages and the largest gaps between average FTE earnings and actual individual worker average earnings. FLCs employ a third of primary farm workers, and their employees have the lowest average FTE and average actual worker earnings.
Fruits and nuts account for almost a quarter of FTE positions and they too have low average FTE and average actual worker earnings. Third, the ratio of average actual worker earnings to average FTE earnings fell between 2015 and 2016 . For all workers whose maximum earnings were in agriculture, the ratio of average actual worker earnings to average FTE earnings fell from 58% to 50%. For workers hired directly by fruit farmers, the ratio fell from 62% to 53%, and for workers hired by FLCs from 44% to 37%. Such falling ratios of FTE to actual earnings suggest that more workers may be trying farm work, but many have relatively low farm earnings. At the same time, some experienced workers could be working more hours. In 2000, a fifth of crop workers were newcomers who had entered the country illegally that year; in 2018 fewer than 2% of crop workers were newcomers who had entered illegally . It is possible that workers are concentrated at both ends of the work and earnings spectrum; the averages reported here would not capture such a bimodal distribution.Farm workers are still sometimes imagined to be migrants who follow the ripening crops from south to north, changing employers as they follow the sun. In fact, follow-the-crop migration is rare: The National Agricultural Workers Survey finds that fewer than 5% of workers employed on California crop farms have two farm employers at least 75 miles apart. However, the FLCs who employ a third of California farm workers often move crews of workers in buses and vans from farm to farm or have the workers transport themselves from farm to farm .
A worker may have only one FLC employer during the year but nonetheless work on many farms. Table 2 shows that 55% of farm workers had only one farm job in 2016, followed by a quarter with two farm jobs and a fifth with three or more farm jobs. There was a jump in the number of workers with three or more farm jobs between 2014 and 2016, from 13% to 19%, almost mirroring the fall in the number of one-employer workers from 60% to 55%. Fewer new foreign workers without authorization means that some employers who in the past refused to rehire workers who in a previous year had quit mid-season to pursue higher wages elsewhere now rehire such workers. Table 3 shows the share of workers who had only one California farm job in 2016 by commodity. The highest percentage of one-job workers was on sheep and hog farms, where 92% of workers had only one job in 2016. In most animal agriculture, mushroom production and nursery crop production, about threefourths of workers had only one farm job. The lowest percentage of one-job workers was in other berries , where 53% had only one farm job in 2016. Between 60% and 65% of workers whose maximum earnings were in citrus, strawberries and grapes had only one farm employer, while 70% of those employed by FLCs had only one farm employer in 2016.Agriculture is a seasonal industry and laid-off workers who are residing legally in the United States may apply for UI benefits. In 2016, some 185,410 laid-off farm workers in California received $446 million in UI benefits, an average of $2,405 each . Almost three-fourths obtained two or three quarters of UI benefits, and about 84% of recipients collected $500 to $5,000. Half of those receiving UI benefits had only one farm job in 2016. Table 5 shows that almost half of those whose maximum earnings were in logging and cotton ginning received UI benefits, although these sectors employed relatively few workers. The largest sector with at least a quarter of primary workers obtaining UI benefits was grape vineyards, where 24% of the 44,000 workers received UI benefits, plastic flower pots more than the average 19% of all primary workers who received UI benefits. Few primary workers in animal agriculture received UI benefits — for example, only 4% of primary dairy workers and 2% of primary sheep production workers. Most of those employed to herd sheep are H-2A guest workers who are not allowed to remain jobless in the United States to collect UI benefits.Figure 2 shows that Kern County had the most workers, 150,300, with at least one farm job in 2016, followed by Fresno County, with 111,800, and Monterey County, with 101,300. These three counties had almost 37% of the state’s almost 1 million farm workers. Using the EDD data, we assigned farm workers to the county in which they had their maximum earnings and grouped them by type of farm work. In most commodities, the leading five counties included half to three-fourths of workers.
For example, 73% of the 354,000 workers employed by FLCs were in five counties: Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Monterey and Madera, including 28% in Kern. The second-largest commodity, post harvest crop activities , included 70,000 workers, 71% of whom were in five counties: Monterey, Fresno, Imperial, Tulare and San Joaquin. Table 6 shows the leading sectors of farm employment by county. For example, 97,900 of the 150,300 farm workers in Kern County were reported by FLCs, followed by 11,800 workers in tree nut farming and 11,300 in grape vineyards; these three categories accounted for over 80% of the farm workers employed in Kern County. In Fresno County, 56,400 workers were reported by FLCs, 13,700 in post harvest crop activities and 10,100 in grape vineyards; these three categories accounted for 72% of the workers reported in Fresno County. In Monterey County, FLCs employed over 40% of primary farm workers, followed by post harvest crop activities with 16% and strawberries with 13%. Over 57% of Tulare County workers were employed by FLCs, followed by 8% in post harvest crop activities and 6% in dairies. In Ventura County, almost 30% of primary workers were employed in strawberry farming, followed by 23% employed by FLCs and 13% in other berries. The number of farm workers rose from 847,600 in 2015 to 989,500 in 2016, up 17%. In Kern County, the number of farm workers rose 25%, in Fresno County by the statewide average of 17% and in Monterey County by 7%. California has a complex farm labor market that involves almost a million workers filling an average 425,000 FTE jobs; the total number of farm jobs is much larger than 425,000, since many farm jobs last only a few days or weeks. The number of farm workers rose faster than average employment between 2015 and 2016, so that there were 2.3 workers per FTE job in 2016, up from 2.0 workers in 2015. The fastest growing sector of agricultural employment, FLCs, is also the sector that offers the lowest average earnings. If the expansion of FLC employment continues, the ratio of workers to jobs could continue to increase, moving the farm labor market away from what public policy has long tried to achieve, a farm labor market with fewer workers who are employed most of the year. The fresh market berry industry in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties is an excellent example of transformation in the business of agriculture over the last 50 years. Located along the Central Coast of California, the two counties span the fertile Pajaro and Salinas valleys, and are well known for their amenable climate and production conditions, their diverse crop mix and grower demographics, and their developed agricultural infrastructure and support industries. The majority of the berry sector is comprised of strawberries , raspberries and blackberries , with blueberries and other miscellaneous berries produced on a much more limited basis. Substantial research-based literature and historical information is available for Central Coast strawberries; however, despite the area’s move towards greater production of raspberries and blackberries, less information exists for these crops. We seek here to provide a more complete portrayal and historical context for the berry industry in the Santa Cruz and Monterey area, which is the origin of the berry industry in California. While the berry industry has been very successful in recent decades, it now faces new challenges, such as invasive pests and the phaseout of the soil fumigant methyl bromide. This article draws on previous and more recent research to discuss some of the influences that have contributed to the berry industry’s dramatic expansion in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, including selected innovations in agricultural practices and heightened consumer demand. Berry industry growth During the 1960s and 1970s, the number of acres planted to berries, tons produced and value of production fluctuated. The fluctuations can be partly explained by farm management: in the past growers often rotated berry and vegetable crops to assist with soil and pest management, thereby influencing these statistics. However, annual crop reports from the county agricultural commissioners show that since the 1980s, berries have become increasingly important to each county’s overall value of production, and by 2014 accounted for 64% and 17% of the total value of all agricultural products in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, respectively . The industry’s growth can be explained by a shift of some acreage out of tree fruits and field crops , among others, into berries, and by additional acreage put into agricultural production.