Salinas, California, isn’t just “Steinbeck Country,” its landscape famously memorialized in novels. The Monterey County city is also known as “America’s salad bowl,” for the produce, including lettuce, that is grown there. And last night, it was a fitting site for the Zócalo and The James Irvine Foundation event, “‘What Is a Good Job Now?’ In Agriculture,” part of a larger series exploring low-wage work in sectors across California.

One-third to one-half of all agricultural workers in the U.S. reside in California—so what happens here matters immensely for the industry, The James Irvine Foundation president and CEO Don Howard reminded a packed audience at Sherwood Elementary School, in opening remarks.

The evening’s panel consisted of farmworkers and their advocates: Salinas local and UC Berkeley student José Anzaldo; agricultural consultant James Nakahara; Alianza Nacional de Campesinas executive director & co-founder Mily Treviño-Sauceda; and retired farmworker attorney Juan Uranga. Los Angeles Times staff writer Rebecca Plevin moderated.

The group teased out the many challenges California’s farming industry and its workers face, from climate change to low wages to health issues. A meaningful message emerged: The solutions to these challenges will have to center on the humans that do the work.

Plevin launched the conversation by asking Treviño-Sauceda to list issues impacting California’s campesinas (women farmworkers) today. Citing wage theft, pesticide positioning, and discrimination, Treviño-Sauceda noted that sexual harassment and rape are widespread—9 out of 10 women are harassed in the field. Alianza Nacional de Campesinas aims to bring attention to these issues and more, she said.

Anzaldo chimed in, speaking directly to Treviño-Sauceda, saying that he respects the work she and her organization do.

“And we want people like you, too, talking about it and building consciousness in society,” she responded.

What about climate change? Plevin wondered, moving on to another hot-topic issue. With extreme heat, wildfires, and floods ravaging California farmlands, what kinds of changes are needed to protect workers?

Nakahara, who advises on farming practices, said that climate change presents both risks and opportunities. Some agriculture will have to shift geographically to accommodate changing climes—citrus, stone fruits, and avocadoes will move north—but other crops may move in to take their place. “We are going to get to grow things here we couldn’t 3,000 years ago,” he said. Throughout these large-scale changes, though, the industry will need to support and care for its workers.

But isn’t California progressive, with good protections for its workers? Plevin, who reports on equity issues, pointed out that California’s rules exceed federal standards. The state regulates when workers cannot work outside due to extreme heat, and requires growers to extend overtime benefits to farmworkers.

“I think the solution is better wages, not better overtime laws,” Nakahara said. Farmworkers cannot afford to live near their work, sometimes commuting four hours each way to get to the fields.

This resonated with Anzaldo, who recalled his own experiences pulling weeds and strawberries. “I remember being paid $13 an hour. I needed it for textbooks.”

To make ends meet, Anzaldo’s mother worked another job in addition to her farm work, and did not have a lot of time to spend with him and his siblings. The work is also physically grueling, and back-breaking. If he put his back up to rest or stretch, Anzaldo remembered, he would be penalized. “We will replace you,” his employers told him.

“It’s disheartening,” Anzaldo told the audience.

And change isn’t easy, said Uranga, the retired lawyer. “Anytime you make substantial changes to the relationship between grower and farmworker, growers are going to complain,” he said. Uranga started working in Salinas in 1974, with California Rural Legal Assistance. Growers like the status quo, and don’t want the challenges of creating new business models that take into account protections for workers.

There’s another big problem, too, Uranga said: Farm work is seasonal. So even if you’re getting $17 an hour, you’re getting it only some of the time. The communities that farmworkers live in have a big role to play, he said. Salinas and Monterey could help agriculture and farmworkers by subsidizing affordable housing or tutors in schools.

And what about technological changes? Plevin asked. How is tech changing farm work?

It’s helped—seed planters and other advances in greenhouses and nurseries have helped make the work easier—but advances are often hard-won, both Nakahara and Uranga noted. Outlawing short-handled hoes, which are more strenuous on the body, only happened when workers and advocates pushed for it, Uranga said.

“We need to stabilize the labor force,” Uranga argued, which dovetails with immigration reform and policy. The H-2 visa program allows growers to go directly into other countries, like Mexico, to recruit farmworkers for brief periods—making it difficult to develop an empowered, stable farming workforce. Fieldworkers should be allowed to stay, with some sort of pathway to permanent residency and citizenship, Uranga said.

For Uranga, that growers and industry leaders didn’t stand up for immigrant workers when political reform came up and amid Republican vitriol against migrants was disappointing. It “gets in the way of creating a job situation for the farmworker community in the U.S. that is more valued,” he said.

The way society values farm work needs reframing, all the panelists agreed. “We need to change the way we view the people who do the hardest work in our country and state,” Nakahara said, pushing back on the notion that farm work is “unskilled.” Treviño-Sauceda, too, pointed out that farmworkers were considered “essential workers” during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not treated as such. No one gave them health insurance or sick days.

The panel fielded questions—from both the online and in-person audiences. “How can consumers leverage purchasing power to drive positive change in food systems?” asked one in-person guest.

Change the packaging, said Nakahara: We have all these labels—certified organic, local, natural. But we don’t have a label that says “this food was made without exploiting labor,” or without forcing workers to get by on poverty wages, he noted. “I think if we did, people would shop differently.”

The night closed with a performance from a live mariachi band and catered food from El Charrito. But before the reception, the audience viewed clips from East of Salinas, a 2016 documentary film that features a young Anzaldo and his mother as subjects; and Beyond Salinas, a forthcoming sequel delving into Anzaldo’s experience at UC Berkeley as a first-generation college student.

Anzaldo said a few words to the crowd at Sherwood, which he attended all those years ago. He said he was dedicated to his community in Salinas, and he wanted those who viewed the films to understand not only his compassion but the issues he and his community face.

“My struggle doesn’t stop,” he said.

*CORRECTION: This “Takeaway” originally reported that panelist Juan Uranga argued for cities and counties like Salinas and Monterey to subsidize farmworker wages. Uranga mentioned subsidies for affordable housing and tutors.