During World War I, for example, labor contractors supplied California growers with seasonal workers from Mexico. Mexican workers had been imported into the state since the 1880s, first to work on the railroads and in factories, and later to work the fields. California agribusiness had become "a coerced cornucopia," as geographer Grey Brechin wrote. In California, growers had political muscle that they could bring to bear in both Sacramento and in the nation's capital. Rich farmlands and a long growing season were factors in that success, as were government-produced ingredients, including torrents of inexpensive irrigation water from massive, publicly financed systems such as the Central Valley project, and a cheap, dependable labor supply, made up largely of Mexican itinerant workers.Ĭalifornia farming increasingly was characterized as "agribusiness," since the industry was not made up of family farms -as was the norm in many other areas of the country-but of vast land holdings operated by major corporations.
This 1960s poster promotes the United Farm Workers, an organization founded primarily by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta to improve the deplorable wages and working conditions that many migrant farm workers experienced in California fields.īy the 1960s, California had been the nation's leading agricultural producer for several decades.