Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 4.3
Spreckels advertisement explaining the use of sugar for manufacturing in the war
industries. From Spreckels (1945). Courtesy of Monterey County Department of
Parks.
proxy of four beet sugar processing companies, including Spreckels. The
group requested 3,000 Mexican workers for the 1942 sugar beet harvest,
and Charles Pioda, the superintendent of the Salinas factory, traveled to
Mexico with FSA offi cials to oversee the selection of the fi rst workers. The
early results of the program were mixed. While some of the workers were
experienced in farm labor, others were not, and few workers had experi-
ence with sugar beets. Further, since most sugar beet growers were accus-
tomed to contracting out their fi eldwork to labor contractors, few growers
had much experience in educating workers on how to do beet work. The
UC attempted to fi ll this gap with “emergency farm labor leafl ets” such as
the one in fi gure 4.5, which demonstrates fi eldwork techniques to improve
