Launched in July 2024, the High Road to Better Agricultural Jobs project is an Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) venture that aims to engage farmworkers and produce industry employers in its certification program, helping farms and farmworkers meet improved workforce, safety, and sustainability standards. The California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Training Partnership (HRTP): Resilient Workforce Program granted the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) $499,500 for the project, which also aims to develop a credentialing program for new skills that workers can leverage into higher-paying jobs.
As part of its certification program, EFI works with farms across California to improve their labor, food safety, and integrated pest management practices. Labor management teams meet on-site to work with and train farmworkers and employers, helping both the farms and employees meet the rigorous standards required for certification. Using past HRTP grants, EFI piloted its Produce and Reduce Program, which led labor-management team members to design waste management practices for helping reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. The pilot was not only successful in reducing CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 1 million miles driven by an average gasoline-powered vehicle: it also helped foster an enduring culture of sustainability on the participating farms.
Through its current HRTP funding, EFI is expanding on its engagement with labor-management teams, giving them access to sustainability training to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “EFI and many others can support growers in taking those first steps in formalizing their programs and helping to build a more sustainable food system. The core approach is to help build trust and collaboration between workers and management,” said Lilian Autler, former Organizational and Workforce Development Manager at EFI.
GoodFarms Produce to Reduce June 2021 meeting, with EFI’s waste reduction team training at a strawberry farm in California.
The HRTP project is also creating a credentialing program that addresses the unmet demand for professional agricultural workers by creating formal pathways for frontline farmworkers to acquire and credential new skills that they can leverage into higher-paying jobs. EFI documented and categorized these skills into three tiers: (I) Foundational competencies, (2) Commodity-specific skills, and (3) Technical skills. With this skill library, EFI is convening a stakeholder coalition of worker organizations, agricultural employers, training providers, community colleges and representatives from state agencies to create a formal agricultural skill credentialing protocol across California. EFI is uniquely positioned to play a key role as a convener, ensuring that workers’ voices are actively included at all stages of credential development and implementation.
The efforts of EFI through the High Road to Better Agricultural Jobs project to provide certification and credentialing programs demonstrates that the transition to more sustainable operations is bolstered by initiatives that support the workforce and introduce opportunities for growth and development amongst existing employees.