Phil McGrath’s family has farmed in California for five generations. Now, as the state mandates overtime pay for laborers, he is one of the few owners committed to the new law: ‘We’ll know we tried to do the right thing’
Ninety minutes from downtown Los Angeles, flowers of all shapes and sizes grow next to the historic US highway 101. Year round the patches of mixed colors fill a small portion of the 300-acre McGrath family farm in Camarillo, which includes sprawling fields of berries, tomatoes and other organic plants.
Javier Carranza is an expert when it comes to chopping and trimming vegetation with a hand scythe between the dirt rows. He has harvested flowers and organic produce at McGrath’s for 19 years, with his father and two brothers. They all live on the property in a simple structure reminiscent of old mustard yellow barracks on local military bases.
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Source: Guardian Environment