Almond boom has downside in fewer farm jobs, less crop diversity

The remarkable expansion of almond orchards in Stanislaus County has been an economic boom for growers, but it’s come at a price: fewer farm jobs and less crop diversity.

Literally millions of almond trees have been planted in the county during the past decade. Stanislaus agriculture officials calculate 160,200 acres of almonds were harvested last year, which is about double the acreage harvested 15 years ago.

Thousands of additional acres of almonds are being harvested for the first time this fall.

While many of those are new trees now growing on what had been non-irrigated pastures on the county’s east side, others have replaced once-coveted fruit trees, tomato fields, vegetable farms and dairies.

The numbers tell the story.

USDA census figures show nearly a 56 percent reduction in Stanislaus acreage used to grow vegetables from 2002 to 2012. Tomato acreage declined 52 percent, peaches 64 percent, alfalfa 38 percent, lima beans 41 percent … and the list goes on.

Declining, too, are farm jobs, in part because almonds simply don’t need as many hands to tend and harvest as fruits or vegetables.

Despite an increase of more than 8 million almond trees, jobs in Stanislaus’ nut orchards rose less than 10 percent during the past decade. Meanwhile, jobs in the county’s vegetable and melon fields plummeted 28 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

And there’s been an overall decline in farm work.

Example: Every July during the late 1990s, there routinely were more than 20,000 farm jobs in Stanislaus County, which accounted for about 13 percent of all employment in the county. But this July, Employment Development Department stats show 14,100 farm jobs. That was about 8 percent of Stanislaus’ total.

Agriculture revenues, by contrast, have soared. Stanislaus’ crop production values last year surpassed $3.66 billion, compared with $1.45 billion in 2003, according the county’s annual crop reports.

That’s a 152 percent income increase in 10 years.

Credit almonds for that, too. Those nuts and their byproducts are by far the county’s top crop, having usurped milk products a couple of years ago.

Last year, Stanislaus’ almond nut, hull and shell values neared $1.74 billion, compared with less than $247 million in 2003. That’s a sevenfold increase.

The county’s peach crop values increased 37 percent during that decade.

‘Less stress’ with almonds

“There was a time when you made more money growing a cling peach than an almond. That’s not the case anymore,” said Paul Van Konynenburg. His Stanislaus farming operation, Britton Konynenburg Partners, grows 1,100 acres of apples, cherries, apricots and peaches.

But Van Konynenburg said he’ll soon start planting some almond trees. Besides providing a higher return on investment per acre, he said, there’s “absolutely less stress … less headaches and less heartaches” growing almonds than growing fruit.

That’s particularly true because there are fewer labor issues to deal with in almond orchards. For one thing, Van Konynenburg said, farmworkers are “hard to come by” during the fruit harvest season.

“All our fruits are very labor-intensive,” he explained. At the peak of harvest, between his farm’s hired hands and contract laborers, “over 400 people are working” on his 1,100 acres west of Modesto.

Compare that with Trinitas Partners, which has more than 7,000 acres of almonds outside Oakdale. This season, Trinitas employed about 70 full-time and 100 seasonal workers. The Oakdale almond grower managed six times as much acreage with fewer than half as many farmworkers as the Modesto fruit grower.

“It’s not like back in the old days” when farm laborers did all the almond pruning, knocking and raking by hand, said Guadalupe Sandoval, who grew up in Riverbank. “My parents did that work back in the 1950s and 1960s.”

Almonds these days are mechanically harvested. The old joke about why farmers pronounce the word “almond” like they do – “because they have to knock the ‘l’ out of them during harvest” – has been modified, with the word “shake” replacing “knock.”

Machines shake trees, sweep up nuts, prune branches and spray chemicals in modern almond orchards.

“What used to take hundreds of workers is being done by machines now,” said Sandoval, who is managing director for the California Farm Labor Contractor Association. “I wish I could say (those machine operators) are making significantly more money (than hand laborers), but I don’t think they are.”

A 2011 study by the University of California Cooperative Extension estimated that Northern San Joaquin Valley almond growers paid machine operators $12 an hour and non-machine laborers $8 an hour.

California farmworker wages have increased “about two bucks an hour” the past couple of years, and now the average farmworker in the Valley earns about $13 an hour, according to Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at Stockton’s University of the Pacific.

“That could reflect a lower supply of labor or a shift toward higher-paid equipment operators,” said Michael, who considers the higher farm wages “good for the county.”

Michael said the shift from migrant seasonal workers to year-round farmworkers should create more employment stability in Stanislaus, even if the number of farm jobs is lower. “It’s not good for the largest industry in the county to constantly require an inflow of low-wage labor,” Michael explained.

Migrant worker shortage

Even if farmers wanted to hire more migrant workers, they would have a tough time finding them, according to Sandoval.

“The number of laborers willing to do this work has really decreased,” said Sandoval, noting how there are fewer immigrants crossing the border seeking farm jobs. “If you are a farmworker and you want to find a job, you will find a job. The labor shortage is fairly significant in California.”

Because of those labor shortages, Sandoval predicted “you’re going to see more and more mechanization” in farming.

“A machine is not going to charge you for worker compensation or medical coverage or overtime pay. And machines do not require shade to rest in or water to drink,” explained Sandoval, who graduated from Modesto’s Central Catholic High School. He said farm employers get frustrated with California’s labor laws. “You eliminate a lot of potential headaches when you go with a machine.”

So Sandoval understands the economic reason growers have been pulling out fruit trees, dismantling dairies and replacing vegetables with almonds. But he’s concerned about the broader impact that will have on the state’s food supply.

“Those almonds get exported,” Sandoval said. “They’re not like the peaches, lettuce and tomatoes that go toward feeding our people here in California.”

Virtually all of America’s commercially grown almonds come from California, and Stanislaus is among the state’s top three producing counties. There’s speculation it may be No. 1 this year because so many new orchards have been planted here, while Kern and Fresno county trees have suffered from the drought.

According to the Modesto-based Almond Board of California, about 67 percent of the state’s almonds are shipped abroad, with Spain and China being the biggest international customers.

Current world demand for almonds is so strong that Stanislaus growers reported getting $3.25 to more than $4 per pound for their raw nuts this year. Compare that with the $1.57 average farm price per pound in 2003.

“Almonds are the Valley’s new gold,” said Gökçe Soydemir, a business economics professor at California State University, Stanislaus. “If I was a farmer, I wouldn’t produce tomatoes. I would produce almonds.”

Soydemir said Stanislaus growers currently have a “competitive value” in almonds, meaning they have the right growing conditions and production capabilities to produce higher-quality nuts at lower relative costs than about anywhere else on Earth.

Less crop diversification

The big profits now being made by almond growers, Soydemir said, are enticing more farmers to enter the market.

And there’s the danger.

“At some point, there’s going to be excess worldwide production,” Soydemir warned. “As supplies increase, the prices will come down. … Then the market will find its long-run equilibrium, and excess profits will disappear.”

It may take a while before farmers realize they’ve planted too many almonds, Soydemir said, because it takes years for those trees to grow and impact production.

“But it’s just basic economics,” Soydemir cautioned. “It’s always the same: boom, crisis and adjustment.”

Soydemir also is concerned about Stanislaus losing its agricultural diversity.

“If this (crop shift toward almonds) keeps going,” Soydemir predicted, “the price of vegetables and fruits will start going up.”

“California currently supplies three-quarters of the nation’s fruits and vegetables,” Soydemir said. But more and more of those fresh foods now are being imported from countries where labor costs are lower. “Do we want to be dependent on other countries for that?”

Soydemir said maintaining crop diversification is economically important for Stanislaus.

“It is your mom’s advice,” Soydemir said, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

This story was originally published September 27, 2014 at 8:33 PM with the headline "Almond boom has downside in fewer farm jobs, less crop diversity."