Organic farmers probed by state over free labor
Rob Rogers
Posted: 07/03/2010 09:21:25 PM PDT

Under normal circumstances, San Anselmo vegetable grower Jerome Draper doesn't have - or need - a lot of help. His father and mother are usually enough to gather up the tomatoes and other crops Draper raises on his one-acre organic farm.

"I pay my dad $1 a year, and he splits it with my mom," Draper said.

Occasionally, however, Draper receives a visit from his sister, his niece and his nephew, who pitch in with a few odd chores around the farm. Draper doesn't pay those relatives, though he does provide his sister with vegetables to feed her family.

That decision earned Draper a $1,050 fine last month from the state Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

"Their regulations say 'immediate family' doesn't include your sister, niece or nephew, so they slapped us with a fine," said Draper, who is appealing the decision. "It's amazing. My sister is a part of my family, and she's someone who enjoys the bounty of our harvest. But she can't do that unless she's paid cash."

For decades, many of Marin County's small organic farms have gotten by with few official full-time employees. Some, like Draper's, rely on family members, while others have been aided by volunteers hoping to become organic farmers themselves.

"Throughout the state, many if not most organic farms have some kind of summer intern program to give people the opportunity to come to the farm and have a hands-on experience," said Helge Hellberg, executive director of Marin Organic. "The organic movement is to a large part based on this interest of young people to spend the summer on the farm and learn where their food comes from."

Under state law, however, those summer interns are unpaid laborers - and the farms that employ them are required to provide salaries, workers' compensation, documentation and other benefits. The state Department of Industrial Relations has conducted inspections of at least nine Marin County farms in the past two years, resulting in two citations and one fine. Another farm, County Line Harvest on the Marin-Sonoma border, received an $18,000 fine for labor law violations in February.

"It opened our eyes," said Megan Strom, an employee at the Petaluma farm. "It's a shame because we get maybe five e-mails a week from people who want to come and intern, volunteer or spend the afternoon getting their hands dirty. But anyone who steps foot on the farm and does anything close to farm work has to be in the payroll system receiving at least minimum wage."

State labor officials insist they haven't been targeting organic farms specifically, and that their criteria for farm employment is no different from that used for any other business.

"If people are willing to work for less than society says is necessary, that has an impact on wages and protections in that industry as a whole," said Carl Borden, associate counsel for the California Farm Bureau Federation. "In addition, if you have a farmer complying with those regulations - at considerable expense - that puts that farmer at a competitive disadvantage with another farmer who is not complying with those requirements."

Borden, who took part in an April 1 forum on labor issues held in Nicasio by the University of California Cooperative Extension, Marin Organic, the Marin County Department of Agriculture and the Marin Agricultural Institute, acknowledged that many of the county's small organic farmers see themselves as leaders of a cultural movement rather than owners of a business.

"Small organic farms seem to have a particular mindset about the righteousness of their cause, and maybe they just don't think about such a thing as the employment laws covering their operation," Borden said. "Some of them said, 'This is the way we've been doing it, and if we had to treat interns as employees and comply with these standards, we wouldn't be able to stay in business.' But that's the cost of doing business. If they can't compete that way, then they can't be in that particular business."

Few farmers believe the cost of hiring someone to replace their volunteers will put them out of business. But most agree that the way they farm will have to change.

"One of the things that attracts people to working on a farm is that it's not punching the clock. It's a lifestyle," Strom said. "People have been comfortable trading a few hours' labor in exchange for some vegetables. They want to get out of that framework where everything has to be documented. But that's definitely against the law in the state's eyes."

One solution to the issue could come from local schools. The College of Marin just completed the second year of an organic farming program at its Indian Valley campus in Novato. Steve Quirt, an instructor with the program, hopes the class will eventually expand to include internships at Marin farms.

"Community colleges really need to take the lead," said Quirt, an organic agriculture educator with the University of California Cooperative Extension in Novato. "Students would take the different classes in organic farming and soil science, and then we'd place them on the farm for a semester. It's something that has to be done so that nobody is violating labor laws."

Yet Quirt believes the College of Marin program is still about two years away from incorporating an internship program. And even if it does, that program would only be able to accommodate those who could devote themselves to becoming full-time students - something only a few would-be farmers have the time and resources to do.

"It's possible that a university can send interns to the farms, but that doesn't solve the issue," said Marin Organic's Hellberg. "It means that only those enrolled in an agriculture program could benefit from the hands-on experience of helping out on the farm."

In the meantime, many of the would-be interns at Marin's farms have been turned away by growers nervous about a visit from Division of Labor Standards inspectors. That change will likely lead to a long, hard summer for Marin's organic farmers - and higher prices at the farmers markets.

"The families that are growing these crops will probably have one of the hardest harvest years ever in terms of their labor needs," said David Lewis, director of the University of California Cooperative Extension, which plans to host a second forum on the issue in September. "They're going to plant and going to harvest, but they're going to be working long hours, and will probably have to call on family members - though of course there's some question as to who within your family can work for you, and what you'll have to pay them."

Contact Rob Rogers via e-mail at [email protected]