Season Is The Pits For California’s Peach Growers

As California's cling peach harvest nears its peak in Yuba and Sutter counties, growers report problems including small-to-average-sized peaches and the availability of fewer skilled workers to pick the fruit.

Farmer Kulwant Johl, whose grandfather began growing peaches in the Yuba City area in the 1920s, says he's worried about the next few weeks, when the bulk of the midseason cling peach varieties will be ready for harvest.

"I am concerned. Harvest of early cling peach varieties started two weeks ago. At the beginning of harvest, there is usually plenty of labor and towards the end of the season, there's always a shortage," says Mr. Johl, who chairs the California Farm Bureau Federation Labor Advisory Committee. "If we are short at the start of the season, what is going to happen at the end? That is what scares me."

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Central Valley Business Times