Read another story in the series of Capital & Main’s investigation: Child farmworkers exposed to toxic pesticides amid lax enforcement.
The summer sun burned through the clouds in California’s Salinas Valley, where a bounty of berries and leafy green vegetables grows across this rich farmland renowned as the “Salad Bowl of the World.” Jose, a quiet 14-year-old, was squatting and bending over for hours with other workers in a sprawling strawberry field.
The pickers, many of them also minors, snapped berries from plants and placed them in plastic cartons, eight of them in a cardboard box. They moved quickly along the long rows that lined the field…