This Thanksgiving, when our families gather to sit down at the table in gratitude, we owe thanks to the farmworkers in Santa Barbara County who labor long hours in dangerous conditions for poverty wages to put food on our plates.
Families across the country will be able to come together for the holidays and fill their glasses with wine from the vineyards of the Santa Ynez Valley and enjoy desserts topped with strawberries from the fields of Santa Maria thanks to the labor of farmworkers in our community. Nearly 20,000 Santa Barbara County residents currently work as farmworkers, and there are more farmworker job openings projected over the next 10 years than any other job category in our county. In 2014, Santa Barbara County agriculture brought in a record $1.5 billion in revenue.
But while the future of agriculture is bright in Santa Barbara County, what does the future look like for the thousands of people in our communities who work in the fields? CAUSE, a local nonprofit advocacy organization, conducted in-person interviews with over 300 farmworkers in Santa Barbara County this summer. Our research showed local farmworkers face extreme overwork, unpaid wages, and health and safety issues like pesticide exposure and lack of access to drinking water.