‘Without People, We Are Nothing’: California’s Farm Workforce Is Growing Older

It’s a cool morning in the small farm town of Caruthers in Fresno County. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but Carmen, a mayordoma, or crew supervisor, hops out of her truck and begins prepping the tools her workers will need to harvest grapes: knives, containers, sheets of parchment paper. She’s expecting at least six people to show up.

That’s already a fraction of the crews she used to lead. After two decades in the fields herself, Carmen has spent the last four years as a supervisor. And lately, finding help is harder than ever.

“Young people don’t want to work in the fields anymore,” she said in Spanish. “And those who used to work here don’t have the strength.”

This morning, just three workers showed up — all of them over 40.

Carmen, 35, knows the work is tough and the Central Valley heat can be unforgiving. Like many parents who work in the field, she’s brought her kids to the fields so they can gain an appreciation for the work.

“And as an example of the kind of future they’ll have if they don’t pursue their education,” she said.

But there’s the contradiction. Even as she pushes her own children toward college, she knows that’s part of the reason her crews keep shrinking. What feels like a triumph for her family only deepens the challenge she faces each day as a supervisor.

Her experience reflects a larger shift: California’s farm labor force is aging, and few younger workers are stepping in to replace them. Meanwhile, the workforce is also under strain from the Trump Administration’s immigration policies.

In 1979, the average California farmworker was 30 years old. Today it’s 40, with many still laboring well into their 60s and 70s, according to Edward Flores, faculty director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, who has studied these changes.

Beginning in the 1970s, the U.S. experienced one of the largest migration waves in modern history: hundreds of thousands of young men and women came from Mexico to California, filling farm jobs that fueled the state’s agricultural boom. In 1969, the largest group of farmworkers was between 16 and 25. By the 1990s, it had shifted to 25 to 34, and the average age has only continued to rise.

“If their parents have chronic health issues, struggle to make ends meet, and tell their kids to get an education instead, many children listen,” Flores said.

The UC Merced Community and Labor Center documents this trend in its report A Golden Age: California’s Aging Immigrant Workforce and its Implications for Safety Net Policy. The research shows that California’s noncitizen workforce, especially in agriculture, is aging rapidly while being largely excluded from Social Security and unemployment benefits.

Flores, who co-authored the report, warns that this leaves many longtime farmworkers with no safety net.

“They harvest the food that we eat, but they cannot even afford to put food on their own table,” he said. “How do we care for those who have spent an entire lifetime in the fields and have no retirement?”

If California wants to attract new workers into agriculture, Flores argues, farm jobs need to pay enough to cover basic needs, come with stronger health and safety protections, and offer an economic safety net for workers as they age.

But demographics aren’t the only factor shaping who shows up to work. Recently, immigration enforcement has also kept crews thin.

The Trump administration has often sent mixed signals on immigration policy. Federal agents have carried out raids on farms in California, even as Trump has publicly suggested that farmworkers could be spared. Those contradictions have left growers scrambling and many crews living with uncertainty.

Bryan Little of the California Farm Bureau said even the rumors of immigration enforcement have an impact on turnout.

“We’ve had scattered reports of people not showing up to complete harvesting operations,” he said.

That fear, layered on top of an already aging workforce, only deepens the shortage. And with fewer reliable hands, growers are already reshaping agriculture.

Little points to nut orchards, where once 20 workers harvested almonds with long poles, now a handful of people can run machines that shake trees and sweep nuts off the ground.

“Five people can do in half the time what 16 used to do all day,” Little said.

Some growers are experimenting with “assistive technologies,” like robotic carts that follow strawberry pickers down the rows. But Little cautions that without immigration reform and a more accessible guest worker program, those tools won’t be enough.

Farmers and advocates have been calling for that kind of change for decades, with little to show for it. The H2A program has long been criticized for being cumbersome and expensive.

Earlier this year, lawmakers reintroduced the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, a bipartisan bill that would amend the guest worker program and create a path to legal status for longtime agricultural workers. But even after passing Congress in previous years, it remains stalled.

Colleges are also stepping in to address the gap. At Coalinga College, Dean Bobby Mahfoud said students often come in with outdated views of farm work.

“There’s a perception among young people that ag is just low-tech manual labor,” she said. “In reality, modern ag careers involve technology, sustainability, robotics, and data science.”

The school offers programs in plant science, irrigation systems, and precision agriculture. Dual enrollment lets high school students sample the coursework early.

“We’re trying to combat the perception,” Mahfoud said. “It looks a lot different than it used to look.”

Still, she admits that agriculture competes with other stable local employers, like state prisons and hospitals, which can offer clear benefits and retirement.

One of the few young people embracing agriculture is 27-year-old Francisco Marin. His parents harvested table grapes in Bakersfield, and he joined them during his high school summers. It was grueling work, long days in 100-degree heat for $9 an hour.

Instead of turning away, Francisco leaned in. He’s now training to become a licensed pest control advisor, a job that could pay upwards of $80,000 a year.

“My mom wanted me to hate the work so I’d stay in school,” he said. “But I fell in love with farming. Now she understands.”

Still, Francisco said he’s often the youngest in the field.

“I look around, and yeah, I’m one of the youngest guys there,” he said.

For Carmen, stories like Francisco’s are rare. In her crew, she only sees workers her age or older. Recruiting anyone under 30 feels impossible. She worries about what that means for the future of agriculture.

“Without people, we are nothing,” she said.