For many farmers, it’s more cost-effective to let crops rot in the fields. They can’t afford to harvest it if there is no market for it, and food banks can’t cover the full cost of labor, CalMatters reports.
It says, last week, Isabel Solorio turned away five families from the Lanare food bank serving farmworkers in rural Fresno County.
There just wasn’t enough food to feed the 215 families who showed up. It was twice the number of families that needed food a week earlier, she said.
But that same week, on a farm just 20 minutes away, at least two fields of fresh lettuce were disced back into the ground, left to rot as the restaurants that buy the produce struggle to stay afloat.
