In this blog, we’re highlighting the work of Líderes Campesinas, an organization that focuses on strengthening farmworker advocacy and well-being, which is a also priority of CalCAN’s efforts to create a resilient, just and healthy agricultural system.

Líderes Campesinas aims to strengthen the leadership of farmworker women and youth so that they can be agents of economic, social and political change and ensure their human rights. For over 35 years, Líderes Campesinas has used outreach, organizing, and activism to improve the lives of farmworker communities. Their work builds upon the legacies of the UFW, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, and many more. In recent years, Líderes Campesinas has advocated for Covid relief for farmworkers, established farmworker resource centers, and expanded culturally relevant rural healthcare through mobile clinics and health fairs. The organization has addressed food insecurity in agricultural communities and made recommendations for a Farm Bill more inclusive of farmworkers. Líderes Campesinas has also worked to ban dangerous pesticides like Chlorpyrifos and help establish a pilot pesticide alert system as well as smoke alert systems. Irene Barraicua, the Director of Policy and Communications says, “there is much more to be done.”

Empowering Farmworker Voices in the Capitol

Earlier this year, Líderes Campesinas convened farmworkers from all over California to meet with state legislators, articulate policy priorities, and share experiences and strategies across regions. Female farmworkers, many of whom are mothers, spent two days in workshops discussing labor rights, health, environmental justice, and gender violence followed by a dance with live music and a day of meetings with policymakers.

“Everyone has heard of the Coachella music festival but no one sees us working out in the fields of the valley,” one participant said. “Today we are not invisible.”

The farmworkers’ stories resonated with many legislative staff. Alexis Castro is the Legislative Director for Senator Steve Padilla, who represents the Imperial and Coachella Valleys and parts of San Diego County. “My mother was a farmworker,” Castro said in Spanish at a meeting with participants, “I understand how hard it is. Thank you for coming here and sharing your experiences – they need to be heard at the Capitol.”

Addressing the Multifaceted Challenges Faced by Farmworkers

Participants articulated the complex challenges and tradeoffs that farmworkers face every day while navigating undocumented status, low wages, lack of transportation, language barriers, gender-based violence, lack of access to culturally appropriate health care and healthy food, increasingly dangerous working conditions due to climate change, childcare and housing insecurity. “What babysitter wants to start at 3 or 4 am when I leave for work?” Many women underlined the need for safe, affordable housing. “Often we are multiple families sharing one house,” one mother shared. A 2018 study found that 67 percent of farmworker households experienced severe overcrowding in the Salinas and Pajaro Valley Region and that 5,300 permanent and affordable farmworker housing units are needed. Developing new farmworker housing and improving and weatherizing existing housing improves air quality and mitigates effects of climate threats like flooding, wildfire smoke, and extreme heat. 

Confronting Climate Change: Heat, Smoke, and Economic Security

Women also shared that extreme heat and smoke from wildfires make harvests particularly dangerous and exhausting, but few other employment opportunities exist – especially for undocumented workers. Farmworkers are 20-35 times more likely to die of heat-related illnesses compared to other workers. The vast majority of farmworkers who are undocumented are not eligible for unemployment pay when they are unable to work because of illness or extreme weather events like floods or wildfires. Líderes Campesinas supports SB 1105, authored by Senator Padilla, which would allow agricultural workers to use sick days for climate-related events like extreme heat. Disaster pay is another critical means of compensating workers through climate catastrophe. 

Participants reiterated that despite working full time and picking up extra shifts, economic mobility is impossible without improved wages. “Farmworkers’ ability to work relies on good weather and is most often seasonal, already leaving them without work for a few months,” says Barraicua. “The detrimental effects of climate change impact their ability to work full seasons and full shifts which leads to reduced work hours and decreased wages for some of the lowest paid laborers.” Developing workforce training options that support farmworkers in building farm management skills that support climate resilience (e.g. irrigation management, sustainable pest management, and pest monitoring) could be one way to protect farmworkers from climate harms, and result in improved pay. 

Barraicua says, “We are also excited to collaborate with agricultural industry leaders, advocates, agency representatives and wine producers to improve the work of vineyard workers via a label and certification we are developing.”

Policy Priorities for Farmworker Well-being and Climate Resilience

Líderes Campesinas’ current policy priorities address the diverse and intersectional challenges facing farmworkers. This year Líderers Campesinas has advocated for unemployment benefits for excluded workers (SB 227 Safety Net For All), VOCA funds for women impacted by violence, prevention of family separation and childhood education (AB 2240), the establishment of a permanent California Worker Outreach Program (SB 1030) and farmworker investments in California’s proposed climate bond.

Recently $635 million in investments for farmworker health and well-being were included in California’s climate bond. Known as Proposition 4 on November’s ballot, the measure will include funds for infrastructure to improve water quality/provide clean, safe, and reliable drinking water, farmworker housing under the Low-Income Weatherization Program, and the Farmworker Vanpool Program. It will be up to voters in November to pass Proposition 4 to ensure these programs receive funding. 

Líderes Campesinas also recently released a report titled “Healing Land, Collective Power” in collaboration with CAUSE and Micop. The research includes the results of surveys and focus groups with farmworkers, interviews with expert practitioners in the field, a review of academic research, and mapping of farmland ownership in Ventura County. It concludes with recommendations for policy change to facilitate innovations in the agricultural sector that would advance the economic security and environmental health of farmworker communities in the region.