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The Farm Labor Drought

SANDY HUFFAKER
/
AFP/Getty Images

A shortage of workers willing and able to do farm labor is forcing some big changes on California's agricultural sector.

On his farm in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles, Tom Deardorff has increased wages to attract workers for the jobs that require manual labor, and he's switched to automation where he can.

He still can't find enough workers, however, so he's had to make some drastic changes. He's stopped growing certain fruits and vegetables. And he's moved a lot of production south. To Mexico.

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Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.