Annual Update Part 2: Labor Systems

Our 2021 Field Crew, harvesting greens last May. Even though we use tractors and tools and try to design efficient systems, growing and harvesting food requires an incredible amount of manual labor.

Annual Update Part 2: Labor Systems

As you know, it takes a team to run a farm, and especially one as big and diverse as Bellair. Nat and I take our responsibility as employers seriously. Every season, we are only as good as our crew and the tools and systems we give them to do their jobs well. Labor is something every farm struggles with and ours is no exception. Even though we use tractors and tools and try to design efficient systems, growing and harvesting food requires an incredible amount of manual labor. When you market and distribute that food direct-to-consumer, there’s also an incredible amount of marketing, administrative, and distribution labor involved. It is enough to make your head spin just thinking about it. 

Nat and I have farmed as managers for two years, but we also farmed as crew members for many years before becoming bosses. We are constantly reminding ourselves of what it feels like to be a farmworker (and an employee in general). We understand that ultimately, it is our responsibility to empower our staff.

Bellair has always rejected the “ unpaid apprenticeship” model that some farms use. We think that all workers (even those that are learning) deserve to be paid for the labor they provide. At the same time, the training curve on a crew made up entirely of “learners” is really really steep! We (Nat and I) have found ourselves on the edge of burnout in late springtime with all the hands-on management we are doing. It’s been a struggle to retain workers year-round because of the seasonal labor flow and budget limitations. Folks end up needing winter employment, and don’t stay at the farm year after year because of that disruptive cycle. We are trying to move towards having more year-round positions and building a team around professionals who stay with us year after year. We think that this approach will help us avoid burnout and make us a stronger farm overall.

We’re welcoming four H2A Workers from Mexico!

Part of our overall strategy for building a workforce of professionals starts with hiring a professional farm crew. The H2A program is the Department of Labor system that is set up for hiring migrant seasonal farm workers. There’s a ton of paperwork and associated responsibilities and it is, contrary to some assumptions, not cheap. We are working with a consultant firm, MasLabor, to help us handle the red tape. The program sets a minimum hourly wage requirement ($14.26 this year) and requires providing housing, transportation, and all travel costs.

We’ve heard from other growers who use H2A (most apple orchards and larger vineyards around here and veggie growers elsewhere) that their experience with the program is transformative for their farm, and for the lives of their H2A workers, who are able to send the money home, where it goes a long way. The workers tend to return year after year, a testament to its benefit for them. 

We know that participation in this program comes with a lot of responsibility to be ethical employers, and we know it’s not perfect. It’s a band-aid, really, attempting to solve one of the many problems of farming in a capitalist systems where many costs, including labor are frequently externalized.

Nat and I have historically been among the fastest workers in the field at Bellair, but I’m not so sure that will be the case anymore! These new crew members will be arriving in mid-late March and we are looking forward to trying to hold our own against our new employees!

Thank you Amanda, Administrator Extraordinaire!

This winter, Amanda has been settling into her role on the farm. Amanda works very part-time for us (only 16 hours a week), but her impact feels much stronger than that! Amanda has been compiling our newsletters for the last couple months and will continue to do so into the summer, taking a huge load off me (Michelle), and allowing me to be in the field supporting our new workers. Finding someone who I can trust with jobs as important as newsletter-writing, website management and inventory-keeping is hard. Finding someone who has those skills AND has a knowledge of our farm and what we’re doing here? Almost impossible. I’m pinching myself every week that Amanda is here and I’m so very grateful for her. 

Having Amanda in a role as complex and nuanced as hers is gives me hope for a future Bellair that isn’t as reliant on my constant presence. We are thinking about other roles we can create for people that are attainable and sustainable for the farm in the long term, like….

A Market Manager and a Greenhouse/Wash-Pack Manager!

Some seasons, we’ve had a de-facto person in one or more of these roles. It’s been a person who has been around the farm for at least a year or two and understands our systems and sort of “steps up” into the role themselves. This approach has meant that in some years, we have someone in the role and sometimes not. I usually fill in the blanks. With seven markets across 5 days and a huge greenhouse with thousands of plants in it, it’s tough when it’s just me, and things fall between the cracks. 

This year, we tried to more fully define and delineate these roles and we hired for them in particular. We are excited to welcome our new Market Manager, Tina, and our Production Assistant, Liv, who will be managing Greenhouse and Wash-Pack. These folks have just started work here, and we hope to have them fully trained up and comfortable in their roles before the seasonal staff join us in a few weeks. Both these roles are designed to go year-round:  the growing and selling of our high tunnel veggies (see Annual Update Part 1: Veggie Growing) will be a part of that. We hope that we can retain folks in these roles for more than just one season and that when we do need to re-hire, we have a clearly defined role and skill set in mind, which makes it easier to find good candidates. 

Pay Rates

As we all know, pay rates are rising, and for good reason. It’s hard to find a rental in this county under $1500 a month (or under $2000 in many areas). Our average hourly pay rate in 2019 was $11.27. For this season, we anticipate our average field crew hourly rate to be $14.68 and market staff rate to be $12.50. All our year-round folks are around $16 an hour at this time. We also offer free veggies and eggs, and a crew discount on other items, which is not an insignificant benefit. However, we think this is still on the low end of “liveable” in this area and we’re striving to do better for our employees (and ourselves). In our opinion, re-structuring the labor force through the strategies and roles defined above are the first step in that process.