Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
vegetable crops shaped the land valuations in the Salinas Valley, making
it more expensive to rent land for any kind of crop. If a grower chose to
move onto less expensive land, it would mean poorer soils, less desirable
topography, and a poorer crop. Labor needs were also high among both
crops; each required intensive handwork for thinning, weeding, and har-
vesting. Labor was the greatest outlay that a grower made when bringing
either sugar beets or vegetable crops to harvest, usually representing more
than half of a grower's total production expenses (Allen 1934). Therefore,
if Spreckels could fi nd some way to make sugar beet production less labor-
intensive, this factor could be shifted in favor of beet farming.
The Drive for Fully Mechanized Sugar Beet Production
Given Spreckels's beet supply diffi culties in Salinas, U.S. involvement in
World War II held mixed prospects for sugar production. The potential for
a real turnaround in Spreckels's luck was certainly there. Demand for sugar
from domestic sources surged during the war years as supplies of sugar
from cane produced in the Pacifi c fell under Japanese control and became
unavailable to the United States and its allies. As the advertisement in
fi gure 4.2 boasts, beet sugar was the “sugar no enemy can touch” (assuming
the Axis forces were kept off U.S. soil). Sugar was a war commodity, not
only for consumption by U.S. and Allied soldiers but also, when trans-
formed into industrial alcohol, for the manufacture of explosives, synthetic
rubber, and plastics (fi gure 4.3). The war also affected the sugar supply of
civilians in the United States and Allied countries. U.S. sugar manufacturers
were suddenly responsible for supplying sugar to many millions more
people than before the war (fi gure 4.4). All these factors together created
a high demand for sugar and a virtually limitless market. Given that the
sugar market had been relatively fl at for several years prior to U.S. involve-
ment in the war, 1941 should have been the start of a banner period of
profi ts for Spreckels.
Once again, labor problems thwarted these chances, and Spreckels could
not get enough beets to operate at full capacity for a good part of 1942
and 1943 (see fi gure 4.1).
27
These early war years saw a massive scramble
to mobilize new sources of labor and new production methods to increase
output for the war.
28
Among the strongest advocates for the Mexican
National Program was a group called California Field Crops, a lobbying
