In Wake of Tragedy, Half Moon Bay Leaders Push Cooperative Farming Model for Farmworkers

Community leaders in the Half Moon Bay area are hoping to create more cooperatively-owned farms and housing, improving living and working conditions for struggling farmworkers.

The push, by Mayor Joaquin Jimenez and San Mateo County officials, comes a year after seven workers were gunned down on two mushroom farms in the quiet, coastal community 30 miles south of San Francisco. The tragedy exposed deplorable conditions at the two sites, where workers lived in sheds and other makeshift housing that had no running water or insulation.

“We need to understand that our farmworkers still need a lot of help, housing, health care, better wages, safe working conditions, safe living conditions, and that’s part of the healing,” Jimenez told KQED at a recent memorial ceremony. “Farmworkers are struggling.”

The son and grandson of farmworkers, Jimenez, spent decades in various roles advocating for better wages and living conditions for the region’s often-overlooked agricultural workers. He said that after the shooting, he realized much more needed to be done for them, and faster.

Before becoming the first Mexican immigrant to serve as mayor of Half Moon Bay, Jimenez was instrumental in helping to launch Rancho San Benito, a farmworker co-op in Half Moon Bay that broke ground roughly five years ago and is still being developed. Funded largely through the county, the operation now has around 10 members who grow their own crops on more than 70 acres of leased land. The project also aims to offer classes to participants about business, land management and sustainability.

“Owning their own crop, owning their own business is the opportunity for farmworkers to be successful and become farmers,” Jimenez said. “We’re going to be offering education and training for community members to be an entrepreneur to run their business.”

The collective — or “co-op” — farming model is hardly a new idea in California. More than 200 agricultural co-ops, big and small, operate throughout the state — including a number of major brands like Sunkist and Blue Diamond, according to the California Center for Cooperative Development. Nationwide, there are more than 4,000 such enterprises.

Cooperatives can offer farmers more market power by allowing members to collectively sell their crops and earn direct profits.

But in California, where available farmland is scarce and expensive, it can be extremely difficult for lower-income farmworkers to get cooperatives off the ground, said Keith Taylor, a UC Davis professor who studies community economic development.

Farmworkers seeking to start their own cooperatives often have very limited access to capital, Taylor said. “The United States notoriously has really substandard cooperative laws and support structures, especially for worker cooperatives,” he added. “When you go to lenders, they’re used to the standard kind of farmer-owned model, a standalone family corporation kind of thing.”

Aldo de la Mora, an agriculture cooperatives specialist with the California Center for Cooperative Development, is helping to spread the word about Rancho San Benito and recruit more farmworkers to participate.

While there is plenty of community interest in the model, de la Mora said finding and purchasing land has been the biggest roadblock to getting Rancho San Benito and other co-ops started.

It’s also difficult, he said, for many of the farmworkers who could benefit from the program to take time away from their daily jobs to meaningfully participate.

“Most of my meetings are literally in the field. They will be working, and I will try to ask questions and organize phone calls. It’s very challenging,” de la Mora said. “It takes a long time, but that’s what this work is.”

In January, as part of a separate initiative, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted to purchase a 50-acre lot in Half Moon Bay for $9 million, with the intention of building farmworker housing and a co-op center.

County leaders, who have not yet purchased the land, said they hope to develop at least 100 housing units at the site, which was formerly a plant nursery.

The co-op center could also boost the local agricultural industry, which officials say is struggling.

“Local agriculture has declined significantly in the last 10 years,” San Mateo Supervisor Ray Mueller said. “We’re looking at building an agricultural co-op distribution center that can help bring products to market. We’re doing all of that to lift up the agricultural economy, which in turn will also lift up and support the lives of our hard workers.”

Mayor Jimenez said the state and federal government must also do more to address the poverty and disempowerment that afflict many farmworkers in this country, and that can lead to the type of workplace violence that is believed to have fueled last year’s tragedy.

In 2022, California farmworkers earned an average hourly wage of $16.72 and an annual income of just $34,790, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Nearly half of all farmworkers in the state are believed to be undocumented. And faced with the threat of deportation, many likely receive wages well below the state-required minimum and are subjected to subpar working and living conditions.

“We have to recognize our farming industry is in the hands of our farmworkers. They are our future,” Jimenez said. “I hope that here on the coast, we can begin to make a dent for our farmworkers.”

KQED’s Farida Jhabvala Romero and Annelise Finney contributed reporting to this story.