California farmers express concerns about upcoming Farm Bill reauthorization.
Local Farmers in California Struggle to Stay Afloat Amidst Regulatory Challenges
As lawmakers gear up to vote on the latest federal farm bill reauthorization in December—which delegates funding for farmers and agricultural and food-based programs across the country—local farmers in California are reflecting on their hardships of staying in business.
The bill, in part, helps support small farmers with increased funding for wastewater infrastructure, labor reform for farm workers—often immigrants—by helping such workers gain legal status and increasing access to financing for start-up, small, and mid-sized farms through various programs.
Dan and Anne Manassero, the husband and wife co-owners of Manassero Farms in Irvine, Brea, and Tustin, say such help is needed as state and federal regulations surrounding farming practices have made it “incredibly difficult” for smaller businesses such as theirs to stay afloat.
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Such regulations affect farmers like the Manasseros in part by shaping costs surrounding their business operations such as water prices, and farming supply costs like fertilizer, transportation, and other agricultural practices and goods.
The duo say such regulations are squeezing their already “very narrow” profit margin, and are doing the same to many other California farmers.
As California continues to lead the country as its top agricultural producer, such regulations are increasing the cost to produce crops, which the Manasseros said contributes to the rising cost of food.
“The government is just putting a squeeze on [local farmers],” Mr. Manassero told The Epoch Times.
According to the Manasseros, state and federal regulations have made farming more and more costly, resulting in the family cutting back their acreage and focusing more on retail such as hosting bridal showers, business retreats, baby showers, and other events in their barn at their Irvine location to stay in business.
“Thank God we came up with that model, if we hadn’t we might not have been able to stay open with how expensive [government] regulations have gotten,” Ms. Manassero said.
Such regulations, they said, include paying residential rates for water usage, instead of agricultural rates they were once charged. Such a change, instituted five years ago due to drought measures, doubled their water bill, Mr. Manassero said.
Another financial strain on their bottom line came after the Affordable Care Act, sometimes known as Obamacare, was implemented in 2010, they said.
The Manasseros said they had to lay off workers in order to stay under the 50-employee threshold as they could not afford to pay for employee health insurance on top of other fees such as business taxes, organic certification fees, and more.
“These [lawmakers] just don’t understand how small our profit margin already is, and every time they pass one of these policies it eats up whatever tiny profit we have left,” Ms. Manassero said.
Additionally, the Manasseros said their financial burden is bolstered by increasing competition from Mexican farms, which are able to grow similar crops at a fraction of the cost since they don’t have the regulatory costs associated with farming in California and the United States.
According to Mr. Manassero, California farms pay their workers per hour what Mexican farms pay per day. Such costs, he said, make it “nearly impossible” for California farmers to compete.
The Manasseros said many Southern California farmers will instead relocate to Mexico to be competitive.
However, they say such economic pressures on U.S. producers may have deadly consequences by placing countries like Mexico as the top food producer for the United States.
According to Mr. Manassero, as American farmers continue to be out-competed and Mexico dominates the food market, food insecurity may become a bigger concern due to corruption interwoven with farming across the border.
“The [drug] cartels run everything down there [including] the farmers. They’re very big into the farming industry for money laundering … they would just jack up the prices [of food] to whatever they want once [American] farmers are out of business,” he said.
Another economic pressure facing farmers like the Manasseros is the cost of oil, which they say in turn is increasing their operational costs like purchasing fruit boxes and other farming supplies.
Making matters worse, Mr. Manassero said, is California’s gas-powered vehicle ban instituted by Gov. Gavin Newsom, which would ban the sale of all such vehicles by 2035.
According to the Manasseros, this policy will skyrocket produce prices since as gas-powered trucks will no longer be allowed to transport produce and supplies at competitive rates. And with California gas being taxed higher than the national average, the Manasseros said their production costs have crept even higher, making them even less competitive with larger producers and growers in Mexico.
“[Lawmakers] did not think that one through at all. We can’t possibly have the infrastructure or money to [enact] something like that so soon,” Mr. Manassero said. “It’s a huge way they’re hurting local farmers.”
A.G. Kawamura, who was then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger’s Secretary of Food and Agriculture from 2003 to 2010 and currently the owner of Irvine-based Orange County Produce farm, repeated many of the same worries as the Manasseros.
Mr. Kawamura said such concerns include labor costs being “too high,” farming moving to and being taken over by Mexico, and regulations increasing operational costs.
“I’m not anti-regulation. I’m anti-over-regulation,” Mr. Kawamura told The Epoch Times. “Farmers have gone from a state of living to a state of survival with how expensive it’s gotten.”
Such regulations, according to Mr. Kawamura, include California’s recent labor laws which require paying farm workers for daily overtime, have forced farms to cut back laborer’s hours due to lack of affordability.
The reason, he said, is because working hours on farms are irregular depending on weather conditions, which require laborers to work overtime on some days to make up for lack of hours during seasonal shifts.
Orange County Produce, which has been run by Mr. Kawamura’s family since 1946, has also had to adjust to meet the financial burden of remaining operational in California amid pricey regulations by not growing certain crops and reducing acreage.
While his farm remains successful, Mr. Kawamura said he has seen many of his farming peers in Southern California’s Coachella Valley move to Mexico.
According to Mr. Kawamura, the valley went from having over 27,000 acres of grape growers and vineyards in the last 50 years down to only 2,000 acres as of this year. He said the migration of farmers will continue to worsen if something does not change.
Mr. Kawamura says less than 2 percent of people in the United States work in agriculture anymore, with most in the country not even being “engaged” in the process at all.
Such lack of involvement, he said, is dangerous.
“That ignorance of where our food comes from and how vulnerable it is, is one of the greatest threats to the nation and the world really,” Mr. Kawamura said. “This is not just the United States. It’s all over the world where there’s so few people in a position anymore to understand what happens to our food or how it’s produced.”
U.S. Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.), whose district spans Santa Ana and Anaheim, is currently in talks with local farmers and nonprofits to gain their input on the Farming Bill Reauthorization in hopes of securing adequate funding for those in the state.
“[The Farm Bill] really touches each of us in our daily lives.
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