California farmers wait for Mexican workers they desperately need
The sun hasn't cracked the horizon when Alfredo Betancourt and 19 of his countrymen line up behind a packing trailer, knives in hand, knee deep in dewy cauliflower plants.
A tractor growls, the packing trailer jerks into motion and Betancourt and his co-workers begin their routine: walk, stoop, cut, toss. Walk, stoop, cut, toss.
By the time the dense fog lifts from California's Salinas Valley, the crew has cut enough cauliflower to fill a dozen produce aisle bins at a local grocery store.
They will crisscross this and dozens of other fields eight hours a day, six days a week, for nine months, sleeping three to a room in hotels long since shunned by tourists. Come December, they'll board a bus and return to Mexico. Richer, they hope.
More than 11,000 foreign guest workers like Betancourt were approved last year to harvest the lettuce, fruit and vegetables for California's $47 billion agricultural industry — a fivefold increase from 2011, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of U.S. Labor Department data.
If this year's hiring pace holds, that number will continue to rise.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/california-farmers-wait-for-mexican-workers-they-desperately-need/ar-BBBFA77?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=edgsp
