Strawberries

Work Zone

Fresas Fraises Erdbeere 草莓ストロベリー 딸기 الفراولة

In 2025 strawberries brought in a gross production value of over $1 billion to Monterey County, California, a 3% increase from 2024, making it the #1 crop in an agriculturally rich county. Neighbouring Santa Cruz county brought in nearly $185 million worth of strawberries in 2024.
Statewide, strawberries are a $3 billion crop, in any one year being about the fifth largest California crop in dollar value.

To prepare a field for planting the earth is injected with a gasses such as Telone and Chloropicrin to kill nematodes and other organisms in the soil. Plastic is rolled over the field, the gaps are sealed and the field is left for several days for the treatment to do its work without seeping into the air.

Then the earth is formed into mounded rows which are covered with plastic to keep the berries from touching the ground where they would rot. The high mounds also make it a little easier for the workers to harvest.

Equipment operators punch holes in the plastic and insert strawberry sprouts.

The plants grow making abundance out of soil, water, and sunlight.

I was at least a hundred yards away, shooting with a telephoto lens, still the smell of pesticides was strong. The tractor drivers wore respirators & bunny suits, but when the guy on the left was about to cross upwind he stopped his tractor and turned off the spray while the downwind guy passed. It was late afternoon when the sea breeze is strongest in that Pajaro Valley near the ocean, and I was downwind. I got back in the closed windows of the car and drove away as soon as I could.

Fresas is the Spanish word for Strawberries. Quite a few years ago I started seeing signs in the fields spray painted on scraps of plywood: "Necesitamos fresaderos", we need strawberry pickers, indicating a labor shortage. Strawberry growing is labor intensive, and harvesting strawberries is hard work. The harvesters are paid by the flat, sometimes you will see them running to the tally stand to get credited for their flat and get back into the field to get the most pay from their hours of work.

Sources:

Strawberries bring in many more millions. That's what I've been photographing. I've watched the acreage expand steadily for decades. That crop is labor intensive also. They are called fresaderos.

Quite a few years ago I started seeing signs in the fields spray painted on scraps of plywood: "Necesitamos fresaderos" indicating a labor shortage.

Below: I was hundreds of yards away, telephoto lens, still the smell of pesticides was strong. The guys were in respirators & bunny suits, but when the guy on the left was about to cross upwind he stopped his tractor and turned off the spray while the downwind guy passed.

Strawberries bring in many more millions. That's what I've been photographing. I've watched the acreage expand steadily for decades. That crop is labor intensive also. They are called fresaderos.
Quite a few years ago I started seeing signs in the fields spray painted on scraps of plywood: "Necesitamos fresaderos" indicating a labor shortage.
Below: I was hundreds of yards away, telephoto lens, still the smell of pesticides was strong. The guys were in respirators & bunny suits, but when the guy on the left was about to cross upwind he stopped his tractor and turned off the spray while the downwind guy passed.