Fresno County asparagus harvest photo by Edward Smith

One of the largest academic studies of California farmworkers is quantifying their difficult workplace and housing conditions at a time when the spotlight on those issues couldn’t be brighter. 

The University of California Merced Community and Labor Center released results of its first California Farmworker Health Study. The 110-page study surveyed more than 1,200 farmworkers in six languages about not just their health, mental well-being and access to healthcare, but also about details of their housing and their employers’ adherence to workplace laws.

Some of the findings include:

About 92% of farmworkers surveyed were renters; about a quarter reported having cockroaches in their homes, about 17% reported rodents, 37% reported their home’s water tasted bad or very bad.

Only 57% of workers who had applied pesticides in the past 12 months reported receiving safe pesticide training that they understood.

When asked how often a grower or contractor required them to work near pesticides when it was unsafe, 12% said sometimes, 5% said often and 3% said very often.

Workers said they had to work “when wildfire smoke made it difficult to breathe” — 13% said sometimes, 8% said often, and 7% very often. 

Nearly half, or 43%, of farmworkers said their employers never provided written heat illness prevention plans, even though that is mandated by Cal/OSHA, the state’s Occupational Safety and Health agency.

11% did not have consistent access to clean drinking water at work.

Even though most farmworkers work outside, only 16% of those surveyed reported ever being screened for skin cancer.

The report comes at a time of increased scrutiny of farm work and living conditions, in the wake of a mass shooting at two mushroom farms in Half Moon Bay.

State and federal authorities have opened investigations into the farms, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office promised action after calling workers’ accounts of living in shipping containers and working for $9 an hour deplorable.

The report’s authors say the study makes the case for more targeted public investments in the physical, economic and social wellbeing of farmworkers.

“Agriculture is one of California’s most vital and productive industries, yet many of its workers experience profound challenges in maintaining their health and wellbeing,” said Edward Flores, one of the report’s authors and an associate professor of sociology at UC Merced.

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Nicole Foy is the Central Valley reporter for the CalMatters California Divide team. She returned home to the Central Valley in 2022 after several years as an investigative reporter in Texas and Idaho, focusing on Latino communities, agriculture and inequity. While in Idaho, she was a 2020 Community Impact Fellow for Stanford University’s John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship program, leading a bilingual COVID-19 reporting collaborative. She graduated from Biola University and is the co-founder of Voces Internship of Idaho, which places Idaho Latino students in paid newsroom internships.