Farmers say they need Trump to let in more temporary workers to keep crops from rotting in the field [View all]

[Zorro]

The sun hasn’t cracked the horizon when Alfredo Betancourt and 19 of his countrymen line up behind a packing trailer, knives in hand, knee deep in dewy cauliflower plants.

A tractor growls, the packing trailer jerks into motion and Betancourt and his co-workers begin their routine: walk, stoop, cut, toss. Walk, stoop, cut, toss.

By the time the dense fog lifts from California’s Salinas Valley, the crew has cut enough cauliflower to fill a dozen produce aisle bins at a local grocery store.

They will crisscross this and dozens of other fields eight hours a day, six days a week, for nine months, sleeping three to a room in hotels long since shunned by tourists. Come December, they’ll board a bus and return to Mexico. Richer, they hope.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farm-labor-guestworkers/