California is by far the largest food producer in the United States. In 2023, our state’s agricultural economy was worth nearly $60 billion. The state’s roughly 63,000 farms grow over a third of all vegetables and around three-quarters of the fruits and nuts produced nationwide.
The lettuce and tomato on your hamburger very likely came from California. The almonds and pistachios you snack on as well. There’s a good chance the olive oil on your pasta is from California. Did you pair that with a glass of wine? Probably California, too.
This bounty all depends on a reliable, skilled and experienced labor force that is overwhelmingly made up of immigrants: Over 80 percent of California’s hired farmworkers surveyed between 2015 and 2019 were from Mexico, and more than half were undocumented. Nationwide, an estimated 80 percent of farmworkers were born outside of the United States, and around half are undocumented.
These immigrants are nothing less than the backbone of America’s food supply, doing jobs that few native-born Americans seek. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids targeting them now will have real consequences for all Americans, very likely including higher grocery prices and fewer options in the produce aisle.
Scaring immigrant farmworkers and depleting the agricultural work force will weaken an industry that has been one of our nation’s strengths since its founding.
These workers are not strangers, and they’re not a burden on California or the nation. They are part of the fabric of our communities. Many have lived and worked here for decades. Our kids go to school together. We live in the same neighborhoods. We worship in the same churches and shop in the same stores.
They raise children who are American citizens — like one of us, who grew up in farmworker housing, the grandson of immigrant farmworkers. The other of us is a granddaughter of immigrants and a first-generation farm owner who helps lead our state’s largest organization of farmers and ranchers.
What our immigration enforcement agencies are doing now, in many instances — treating hard-working, law-abiding immigrant workers as if they are violent criminals — is a mistake. Prior administrations, both Democratic and Republican, focused immigration enforcement on serious or violent criminals, with success. That’s a critical distinction that should also guide policy today. And it’s what most Americans want: In a July Fox News poll, 59 percent of voters said the government should deport only undocumented immigrants who’ve been charged with crimes.
In our state, we know that fear of immigration enforcement is keeping farmworkers away from the fields. Several weeks ago, ICE officers raided farms and fields in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties that grow a large portion of the state’s strawberries. Similar raids have taken place at packing houses — locations where picked produce is boxed and shipped. These raids cause confusion and concern among farmworkers and farm owners alike. Lisa Tate, a Ventura County farmer, recently told Reuters that about 70 percent of the workers in the fields around her are no longer showing up. We have heard similar reports from farmers and ranchers across California.
In response, the California Farm Bureau is educating farm employees and employers about their rights when responding to immigration enforcement actions, and it is working with the California Farmworker Foundation to support farmers and farmworkers. The California Legislature is working on several bills to further protect the farmworker community and vulnerable immigrants, and maintain the strength of our agricultural economy.
When workers don’t show up, crops aren’t picked. To prevent rotting in the field, ripe strawberries must be harvested within a tight time frame. The same goes for grapes and leafy greens such as lettuce and spinach.
Nearly every crop has a precise window for optimal harvest. When that window is missed, crops become undesirable to retailers, resulting in food waste and higher costs. This month, CNN reported on a cherry farm in Oregon (our state’s next-door neighbor) with 30 acres of unpicked, rotting fruit. The farmer estimated a loss upward of a quarter-million dollars as a result.
For Americans already struggling with high prices, anything that can add to their grocery bill will be felt, but the impact of immigration enforcement doesn’t stop at the supermarket checkout line. Farms and ranches support hundreds of thousands of American jobs in food processing, packing, transportation, logistics, equipment supply and more. In 2023 alone, California’s farmers and farmworkers generated some $22 billion in agricultural exports.
Bottom line, it isn’t easy for farmers and ranchers to replace farmworkers if they’re deported or don’t show up. These positions require experience, endurance and specialized knowledge; as anyone who has worked on a farm will tell you, farm work is not unskilled labor.
In June, President Trump said on social media, “Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”
Exactly.
There have been reports that Mr. Trump is at least considering policy options that would create new avenues for undocumented migrant farmworkers to live and work in America. We urge him to make this a priority and to work with Congress to find a humane, practical and bipartisan solution that ensures a stable farm work force and protects farmworker families and the future of American agriculture.
Robert Rivas is the speaker of the California State Assembly. Shannon Douglass is the president of the California Farm Bureau.
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