agriculture

California farmers have an opportunity to turbo-charge the green revolution in rural America with crop-based biofuels.

A new study shows farmworkers say they have been left unprotected from COVID-19 by the very employers and agencies who wrote emergency regulations intended to keep them safe.

If we can rethink our habits of polluting the air that we breathe, we can improve our air quality in California and the Central Valley.

California employment law has become an electrified maze of regulations where walls shift without reason and once-safe paths are suddenly blocked.

Lea este artículo en español.  State Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) wants the state to acquire a stockpile of N-95 masks and set up a strike team to distribute them to farmworkers when they continue to work under dangerous conditions during wildfires in order to keep the country fed. Although Assembly Bill 73 has no funding attached, […]

Looking forward, 2021 will be an important year for moving ahead on implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

Lea este artículo en español. In 2019, Monterey County sold more than five billion dollars worth of agricultural products, from cannabis to strawberries to leaf lettuce. It is, by far, the largest industry in the county.  However, that industry needs laborers on the ground. Tens of thousands of people plant, pick, and pack the produce that […]

Backed by the state’s attorney general and welcomed by labor advocates as better late than never, California's new policy will start to hold businesses accountable for protecting their workers, mandate reporting outbreaks and decrease crowding in housing for vulnerable guest farmworkers spotlighted in a California Divide investigation.

Lea este artículo en español. California lawmakers are looking to protect one of the state’s most valuable workforces with a new COVID-19 relief package.  Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a farmworker relief package this week, which promises farmworkers stricter enforcement of health guidelines and education of paid sick leave for COVID-19, among other things. Lawmakers also requested Newsom […]

Santa Barbara County adopts new rules aimed at preventing COVID-19 outbreaks among H-2A farmworkers. The move comes amid reports of outbreaks, including a monthlong investigation by CalMatters and The Salinas Californian that uncovered outbreaks that sickened more than 350.