Although highly mobile, lechugueros represent a much more stable labor force than, for example, migrant strawberry pickers. Santa Barbara County’s fourth value crop is cauliflower. It engaged 8,920 acres of the Santa Maria Valley’s prime farmland and generated $29.5 million in 1992 . Like other crops described above, cauliflower boomed from under 1,500 acres in the late 1970s to nearly 9,000 today . Crop prolificacy also has risen from under 9,000 pounds per acre to 15,000 in the same period of time . As the close relative to broccoli that it is, cauliflower presents similar production and employment characteristics. It is, for example, farmed nearly year round and, as a result, offers a relatively steady source of employment to a number of local farm workers. Demanding 96.5 man-hours per acre to produce , Santa Maria’s current cauliflower acreage consumes 860,000 man-hours. Two-thirds of the labor requirement is used to harvest and field pack, and the remainder to plant and cultivate. We estimate that some 800 workers are employed regularly but intermittently by local cauliflower farms to complete these tasks. Harvest crews surveyed in 1993 revealed that all employees, like broccoli crews, are local permanent residents. Weeding and thinning crews, moreover, revealed that they are, in great measure, made up by the same local workers who execute similar tasks in the broccoli fields. Wine grapes are Santa Barbara County’s sixth value crop. Vineyards issued $28 million in 1992 and occupied 9,532 acres . Prior to 1970 there were no commercial vineyards in Santa Barbara but soon afterwards the industry took-off owing to growing national demand for wine, blueberry in container especially for the premium varieties Santa Barbara is capable of producing . In 1975 some 7,000 acres had been appropriated by the crop and by the early 1980s growth had leveled to the current acreage .

Although many of Santa Barbara’s vineyards are located in the neighboring Santa Ynes Valley, much of the new growth has occupied the hills and slopes that surround the Santa Maria Valley. Moreover, much of the labor employed by the county’s vineyards finds temporary or permanent lodging in the Santa Maria area. Wine grapes require approximately 110 man-hours per acre to cultivate and harvest . Much of the vineyard work is spread throughout the year and, consequently,requires only small crews to, among other things, prune the vines, till the soil, inspect and repair trellises and drip irrigation lines, fertilize and spray, and complete pre-harvest leaf removal. Harvest, in contrast, claims one-half of the annual labor requirement during a brief and intense moment in the early fall. Because Santa Barbara wine grapes are used to craft premium wines, the fruit must be picked in its prime, that is, during a short, fleeting window of opportunity when a large number of workers must labor in a frenzy to gather the grapes and transport them to the wineries for processing. Although mechanical means are currently available to harvest wine grapes and, in fact, most Santa Barbara vineyards have been designed and trellised with this in mind, growers continue to hand-harvest their crops in order to ensure the highest possible quality product. Santa Barbara vineyard acreage, according to available man-hour/acre computations, requires some one million man-hours to cultivate and harvest. We estimate that three hundred workers, employed intermittently during the course of the year, supply the labor needed to complete all the production tasks with the exception of harvest. All non-harvest employees are local resident workers, and many combine intermittent employment in the vineyards with employment in other local crops. Harvest crews, in contrast, are made up by both local and migrant workers.

Our 1993 survey of grape harvest crews, in effect, revealed a prevalence of transient migrants with a smattering of local residents, including many who had participated in other valley crops, especially strawberries, during the course of the summer. With just 2,724 acres, celery yielded an impressive $16.9 million in 1992, making it the county’s seventh value crop . Celery acreage and value are both down relative to 1989 production when 3,478 acres yielded $23.6 million. Nonetheless, it represents another vegetable crop with a healthy consumer demand, especially that which is designed to supply specialty markets. Most Santa Maria celery is, in effect, grown for premium markets and, as a result, is pampered during cultivation and then hand harvested. Celery is essentially a cool-temperature crop which thrives in the temperate winters of the California coast. In the Santa Maria Valley, plantings are established during the late summer and early autumn to be harvested from November to July when the long summer days and increased temperatures impel the plant to bolt. The cultivation of celery actually begins in nurseries where seedlings are started and prepared for transplantation to the fields. Growers stagger transplanting activities in a way that will assure an extended but steady harvest. Although mechanical planters are normally used, work crews are also needed to feed and assist the machine, and to correct frequent planter errors. When the ground is too wet, owing to rain or irrigation, the use of the mechanical planter must be forgone altogether. Weeding is intense and harvest constitutes a major enterprise. Depending on whether mechanical planters are used or not, celery requires from 240 to 320 man-hours per acre to produce, much of it, about 150, during the harvest alone . The celery harvest is arduous, back-breaking and, considering the presence of a large number of workers swinging razor sharp instruments in a fairly restricted space, it is deemed to be quite dangerous indeed. Harvest crews, as a result, are made up almost exclusively of young men. Based on available man-hour/acre computations, Santa Maria celery acreage requires some 800,000 man-hours to produce. Field observations, moreover, allow us to estimate that harvest crews employ about 400 workers who enjoy a seven-to-eight-month season of reliable but intermittent employment.

Transplanting and farming crews employ about 175 workers on a fairly regular schedule during at least six months of the year, while nursery work employs some 50 workers year-round. The celery industry, like lettuce, has established specialized harvest crews that move about California coastal celery-growing sites . In contrast with the lechugueros who tend to live in the United States-Mexico border area and enjoy a relatively stable relationship with their employers, celery cutters are typically migrants from the interior of Mexico and suffer high attrition rates. The celery harvest offers young men an excellent opportunity to make good money, but few workers remain in its employment for more than a few years. Nursery employees and celery cultivators , on the other hand, are mostly derived from the local, settled farm-working population and enjoy stable employment. The six fruit and vegetable crops described above create a 15 million man-hour labor demand in the Santa Maria Valley. However, in order to correctly estimate the valley’s entire fruit and vegetable labor demand it is necessary to make two additional adjustments. First, a myriad of other labor-intensive vegetable crops which occupied 11,230 valley acres and generated $41 million in 1992, augment the valley’s labor demand by at least 1.5 million man-hours. Second, because one-fifth of the Santa Maria Valley belongs to neighboring San Luis Obispo County and we have thus far based our estimates on crop data from Santa Barbara County alone, it is necessary to augment our first estimate by twenty percent. With these two adjustments, the valley’s fruit and vegetable labor demand ascends to nearly 20 million man-hours. If the aforementioned labor demand were to be evenly distributed throughout the year, plastic planters bulk it would create approximately 9,500 full-time jobs. In actuality, because farm employment is not uniformly distributed, Santa Maria’s fruit and vegetable farms employ as many as 23,000 different workers during the course of the year. Controlled field observations and work crew interviews conducted in 1993 suggest that in the Santa Maria Valley: Only ten percent of all farm employees enjoy full-time, year-round employment; twenty percent experience regular but intermittent employment during eight to ten months of the year; forty-five percent attain continuous employment during an extended season of four to six months and, hence, encounter long periods of unemployment; and twenty-five percent are employed only during a short, intense work season of two months or less. Finally, also based on controlled field observations and work crew interviews, we conclude that forty-three percent of Santa Maria’s 23,000 strong fruit and vegetable work force are immigrants who have established themselves permanently in the valley with their families.

The remaining fifty-seven percent are migrants who maintain a home base away from Santa Maria in either the border area or in the interior of Mexico. It is important to note that the number and mix of immigrant and migrant farm workers in the Santa Maria Valley has been in constant flux ever since we initiated our observations there several years ago. This is, in part, the logical outcome of an agricultural economy undergoing rapid, profound change. Two other conflicting forces, however, have also exerted considerable influence over this affair in recent times: On one hand, IRCA’s special provisions for farm workers which, to be sure, invited many former migrants and their dependents to settle down permanently in the valley, have contributed to increase the count of both authorized and unauthorized immigrants, and, on the other, the increasing prominence and rapid proliferation of farm labor contractors who, by preferring to hire new sojourners over established immigrants, stimulate migratory practices while displacing immigrants from their jobs. Nevertheless, in light of 1993 observations, the pulse of the valley is for both immigration and migration to continue growing unabated, probably at a rate which exceeds the creation of new farm jobs. Regarding the April 1 date when the Census Bureau undertakes its decennial count of population, it is important to note that although most immigrants are in the valley at that time, only one-half or less of the migrants are actually there. By early April the strawberry and lettuce harvest is just beginning to build-up steam but is not yet in full swing. Moreover, having just arrived, most migrants are still in the process of making their living arrangements for the season, creating with their great numbers havoc in the local housing situation and probably producing the worst possible conditions for the completion of a sound and accurate population count. Finally, in April the wine grape harvest is still six months away and, as a result, most of the migrant workers who participate in it will be missed as well. According to estimates made in the previous section, some 23,000 farm workers become involved in the valley’s agricultural endeavors during the course of the year. A little over one half of them are migrants who remain in the valley only as long as employment is available, some for just a few weeks, others for as long as eight to ten consecutive months. The other half, more than 10,000, have established themselves permanently in the valley with their families, accounting for as many as one-third of the valley’s inhabitants. The immigrant and migrant farm-working population of Santa Maria, moreover, continues to grow owing to: the farm employment opportunities the valley continues to offer; the dynamics of migration itself as settled migrants draw family and friends from their home communities in Mexico; and ongoing IRCA reverberations. In view of prevailing conditions and observable behaviors, there is no reason to assume that the flow will cease or diminish any time soon despite the fact that the valley already suffers a considerable labor oversupply. Farm workers in the Santa Maria Valley are not an homogeneous lot. The stereotypical view that once served to describe the California farm worker as a nomadic, young, single male campesino from Mexico is of little value today. Among the valley’s numerous farm workers are young and old, male and female , single and married. Some, as we have seen, are settled while others move about. They are, in effect, a broad array of different people displaying diverse and distinct behaviors. Farm workers continue to come from traditional sending communities located primarily in the Mexican central states of, for example, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacan and Zacatecas, but also from new sending communities located in the southern states of, for example, Oaxaca and Guerrero; and some are from as far south as Central America, especially from Guatemala.