(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Production funding for "American Grown" provided by James G. Parker Insurance, protecting agribusiness in the valley for over 40 years.

Brandt professional agriculture, discovering manufacturing and supplying the Ag inputs that support the heroes that work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By Unwired Broadband, today's internet for rural central California keeping Valley Ag connected since 2003.

By Hodges Electric, trusted by builders to wire thousands of valley homes, now bringing that trust direct to you.

By Wawona Frozen Foods, fruit as it should be family owned since 1963.

By Harris Farms, a legacy of growing.

By Harrison Co providing family farms insight to make the best possible financial decisions.

And by Valley Air Conditioning And Repair, family owned for over 50 years dedicated to supporting valley agriculture and families that grow food for the nation.

(dramatic music) (peaceful music) The San Joaquin Valley Awakens as another day in California begins the first light spills over the Sierra Nevada and across some of the most productive farmland on earth.

For generations, people have come here with a simple mission, grow food.

For much of our history, farming was seen as a noble profession.

Farmers were respected and the people who worked beside them in the fields were respected too.

But somewhere along the way, that image began to change.

A new narrative took hold.

One that paints farm work as exploitation and farm workers as victims.

But here in the San Joaquin Valley, the truth looks very different.

These fields are filled with skilled capable people, men and women who take pride in their work.

They come from many places, but share a common purpose, growing the food that feeds America.

(crowd chattering) And across California, a new generation of organizations and programs is working to ensure the people who harvest our food are valued, protected, and supported like never before.

(peaceful music) Because the future of agriculture doesn't just depend on land and water, it depends on the people in these fields and their stories deserve to be told.

(peaceful music continues) (peaceful music continues) - Church Brothers is a complex agricultural company.

And I say complex because it's the full business cycle from growing, harvesting, processing, shipping, and sales arm.

So it's all levels.

It is in California, Arizona, and in Mexico.

I do believe there is some confusion, especially up the supply chain who purchase from growers, suppliers, and they don't quite understand where is it coming from, how is it an in-house program, is it external?

Who do we contract with?

So there is an enormous amount of regulation that has come out and requirements from our customers on making sure anybody we do business with, and it's not just in-house program, but FLC specifically, that they have the same guidelines of what we require for our employees, right?

So it's employee rights, employee safety, the working conditions.

And so the whole spectrum of that.

So there's a lot more regulation because there's a lot of confusion over that topic.

I've been with Church Brothers a little over eight years now in the industry, 34 years to be exact.

So the changes that I've seen is definitely a lot more regulation.

I've seen regulation that that is similar to what I consider ethical employers were already had in place, which is supplying health insurance, which is working conditions.

But then I've also seen some extreme regulation that makes it harder to really offer internal resources to the employees.

Because instead we're focusing more on the regulation, compliance, documentation, reporting, and less on what is best for the employees.

(peaceful music) (engines roaring) - We're just cleaning out these hoses for the beginning of the irrigation system.

Over time they get silt and dirt and any number of things inside of 'em.

So we're just opening up the lines.

So when we start irrigating later this spring, it'll be ready and clean and ready to go.

And as long as they've got 10 acres done over there, open that valve.

Come back and close this one.

It's gonna take a second.

- [Narrator] Eric Bream and his son represent the current and next generation carrying on a family legacy of farming.

Some of the citrus trees in their groves just west of Lindsay, California are more than a hundred years old.

Farming operations don't last that long unless you're doing something right.

- I'd rather have that.

- And one thing Eric believes deeply is taking care of the people who help make it all possible.

That belief led him beyond the groves and into leadership role with an organization working to strengthen the lives of farm workers across California.

Along with running this citrus operation in the southern San Joaquin Valley.

Eric also serves as board chair of United Ag, a company with deep roots in agriculture and a growing mission to provide healthcare benefits and support for the men and women who worked fields.

- So when you think of agriculture and when you think of healthcare, these two industries, I don't necessarily see them as a business, they're so unique.

And the approach that we take has to be something that's very different from a business approach, right?

This is touching human beings.

When you think of healthcare, you and I can be diagnosed with something.

How would you and I like to be treated?

That's how human this is.

And to put that human at the center, right?

That needs to be put at the center of healthcare industry.

And we are serving an industry that feeds the nation and feeds the world.

United Ag is very unique and different in looking at these two industries and identifying that.

Let's first start off with treating our members as you and I as human beings, is what happens, and an employer group who's serving, because employers are the ones who are the ag industry, the members of United Ag or the groups that are associated with United Ag, they're feeding the nation, they're taking care of us.

So what would you wanna do for them?

So that, how do you sustain a low margin business like in the ag industry, because this industry is giving back to us.

And that's, that I feel is a core, at the core of who what United Ag is all about.

It's more than work.

It's like I get goosebumps when I think about this because how amazing is that, that I get to lead this life where at the end of the day, I wanna feel so fulfilled that we've done right by the human beings that we serve and right by the two industries that we serve.

- Rancho Guadalupe is a locally farm grower for in Santa Maria we grow vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, cabbage.

Am I forgetting one?

Lettuce and romaine.

(laughs) So I started working here almost 13 years ago and soon, right after I started working, the company decided to move away from the insurance company that they were with and we joined United Ag.

So I kind of started from the beginning in trying to learn more about it.

So since the beginning, what I've liked about it, United Ag is the same reason that I like working here.

It's kind of aligns with the morals of being able to help out our community, suggestions, or whatever that we give, you know, here or to United Ag.

They don't just bypass it, to me, it's not just a, like a regular insurance, 'cause you get a lot of people who like complain about, oh my God, the insurance doesn't care.

And that's not the feeling that I've had with United Ag.

So that's why I feel like I can work very well with them and reach out to anybody and be able to say, "Hey, who can help me with this?"

And they're very receptive.

I, me personally, I haven't had those big issues.

I, you know, they'll do whatever they can to help out.

(peaceful music) - [Narrator] Healthcare for agricultural workers is something many consumers don't fully understand.

And the truth is, it's still evolving.

When farming operations wanna strengthen the benefits they provide their workforce, organizations like United Ag help make that possible.

One of the ways United Ag is setting itself apart is by bringing healthcare closer to the communities where farm workers live and work.

Across California the organization is opening medical clinics designed specifically for agricultural workers and their families.

These clinics provide more than basic care.

They offer education, preventative medicine and guidance on how to live healthier lives.

It's an approach that keeps people out of overcrowded emergency rooms while helping control the rising healthcare costs facing families across California.

And at its core, it reflects the same sense of responsibility that drives farmers in the fields.

Take care of your people and the whole community grows stronger.

- We're open on Wednesdays from 10 to seven.

So they can walk in after they're on a break or when they're off of work or if they called off of work 'cause they're sick, they can just come in and we'll see them for whatever they need to be seen for.

And even if they call to make an appointment, we can get them in usually same day.

A lot of times the farm workers, they don't understand the ER, they don't understand how their insurance works at the ER, so it's easier if they come here for minor colds, ear aches, things that I can see them for, and they can be treated for rather than wait in ER for hours, you know, till they are able to be seen.

And in this city, Santa Maria, there's only a couple urgent cares.

So if there's a lot of other patients there, then it's gonna be a, I've heard people waiting six to seven hours and when you're sick, you don't wanna do that.

You wanna get treatment and go home and get better.

- It really has to be the employee first.

You know, even I remember the owner has said, we're here because of our employees.

We wouldn't be here and have, you know, a company if we didn't take care of our employees.

Who wants to come back and work for somebody who, you know, is doing all these bad things and is not taking care of the employee first.

So they're, we look at to make sure that they're making a good wage, especially when it's piece rate to make and if for some reason what- - What is piece rate?

Explain it.

- So piece rate is, we call it, (Veronica speaks in Spanish) and it's basically where employees for the vegetable crews, they kind of work as a crew, so you have maybe like 15 people in a crew and they all work towards the same goal to take the product, whatever it is out of the field.

If so, if it takes them, you know, five hours, however many pieces they made, and we give a rate to a per box, then they, they make that they can make, you know, 19, 20 some, there's been times where they make $26, 27, 28 an hour.

You know, so they make pretty good money.

If it starts to drop, I'm not gonna say it doesn't because maybe there's less product in there.

They get a minimum wage adjustment to make sure that they're always making at least minimum wage.

And if that continues, we tend to look at it so we can revisit it, so they're not just always making minimum wage.

- And all of United X products have a Mexico panel.

A good percentage of our workforce is from Mexico, specifically the northern region.

And so being able to have that option to have quality healthcare resources in a region that is their home away from home or home away from home or their primary home is unheard of.

And to this day, I don't know of any other ag insurance company that, or organization that has something similar.

- [Speaker] This is what's happening when all that sludge comes out.

That's just silt.

- [Speaker] Well that is actually, this was when one of our sand filters overloaded and threw all of this into the system.

That's why we're doing this today, is to try and push all of that out.

This happened late in the season last year and we flush it the best we could, but now we're gonna try and flush the entire system.

- So when we, I first started, right?

We were a $80 million trust and today we are $270 million and we've already had around 12 to 15 million in new groups for 2026 signed up.

And the reason that happens is exactly what you said.

When you fixate on numbers, when you fixate on renewals rates and all that, that from a business standpoint you fixate on, then you lose something, right?

But when you fixate on the right thing, money comes, money flows because you are aligned with what is the right thing to do.

And each one of us, so it's not just me.

If you talk to anybody at United Ag and you feel right, you like, who is Katy, who is anybody else at United Ag, and say, what is your mission, life mission or your goal, or what do you wanna do if that's aligned with exactly with what you are doing at work, and the the two are perfectly aligned, money flows, and we've seen that success happen.

We have great surplus.

We have, we have grown triples in size.

We have, we are doing financially very, very well.

And our renewal have been very, like less than 10% from 90 or 95% of our groups.

So we are in a very, very good financial position.

And the reason behind that was we didn't fixate on the financials.

So... (peaceful music) (relaxing operatic music) I am hoping the success that we see in agriculture and bringing that cost down, we can use it to spread that across, right?

So not just in California and Arizona, we are looking at different markets.

So now I want to go national with this because this model works.

This model works.

Doing right, putting the human at the center has had an impact from a financial standpoint.

We've grown, we've shown the impact, we've had this right surplus, our renewal, everything has been working.

So if this works right, then why not have more and more people experience this?

(relaxing operatic music continues) Ag is the industry we serve, but, and I am, ag gets to experience this, hopefully we get this out for other people and everybody else, and across the whole national ag gets to experience what we have here in California and Arizona.

(relaxing operatic music continues) - [Narrator] Agriculture is more than an industry here in California Central Valley.

It's the backbone of the region and a cornerstone of the nation's food supply.

Fresno County alone generates nearly $10 billion in agricultural production every year, making it the most productive agricultural county in the United States.

(relaxing operatic music continues) But those numbers only tell part of the story, behind every acre, every harvest, every box of food leaving these fields are people, men and women whose work begins before sunrise and often ends long after the valley sun disappears behind the coast range.

Farm workers are not an abstraction.

They are skilled, dedicated members of the communities that power California agriculture.

And today, more than ever, farmers understand that caring for that workforce isn't optional.

In a modern agricultural economy, the farms that invest in their people are the ones that thrive.

Organizations like United Ag, educational programs like those offered at valley schools, and the farmers themselves are working together to build a stronger future for the people who grow our food.

But there's something the rest of us can do too.

Take the time to understand where your food comes from.

Look beyond the headlines and see the people behind the harvest, because every time we drive past a field in the San Joaquin Valley, there are individuals out there doing work that sustains us all.

And their story deserves not just to be told, but to be understood.

- I was born in Mexicali, Mexico.

My mother worked in produce, in agriculture industry.

She did the traditional seasonal transfer.

We stayed in Mexico while she did that with my dad.

And then from there, fast forward it now when I'm going to school, had my first internship and I interned for a safety department.

And that was my first exposure to compliance.

So for me, that world was just the norm.

You know, hardworking, hardworking individuals, high morals, very loyal and dedicated, and they come to work knowing that they make a difference.

They come to know knowing that they are contributing to the food that's all over the world, okay?

Especially as they say the lettuce capital of the world is California.

What I see now in the workforce is very similar to what I first was exposed to, very similar to how I was raised, but I'm seeing first, second, and third generations.

I mean, I, I can tell you that we do have an aging population, but we still have second and third generations of employees who have a choice of where they want to work.

And they're choosing to work in the ag industry.

They're choosing to work there.

Why?

Because it feels like home.

Why?

Because it reminds them of what their parents have instilled in them.

As you know, you you, you wanna work for an organization and an employer who does the right thing.

So that has, that is why I am affiliated with Church Brothers.

And that is why I take pride in serving that community.

I know the hard work that goes into it.

I get up at four 30 every morning myself, calls start coming in by 5 30, 6 30, there's sales calls.

At the end of the day we're checking in making sure, you know, did everybody come to work the same way they left, and employees now have a choice more now more than ever.

There's so much regulation.

There's anonymous reporting through not just internally, but also through agencies, state and federal.

But they choose to continue to come back, not just to the same industry, but I take pride into the same employer year after year.

So it is a workforce that's hardworking, ethical, and they wanna be associated with a very similar organization.

And we wanna be also affiliated with very similar business partners, which is United Ag.

(peaceful music) - [Narrator] Production funding for "American Grown," provided by James G. Parker Insurance, protecting agribusiness in the valley for over 40 years.

Brandt professional agriculture, discovering manufacturing and supplying the ag inputs that support the heroes that work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By Unwired Broadband, today's internet for rural central California.

Keeping Valley ag connected since 2003.

By Hodges Electric, trusted by builders to wire thousands of valley homes, now bringing that trust direct to you.

By Wawona Frozen Foods fruit, as it should be, family owned since 1963.

By Harris Farms, a legacy of growing.

By Harrison Co providing family farms insight to make the best possible financial decisions.

And by Valley Air Conditioning And Repair, family owned for over 50 years dedicated to supporting valley agriculture and families that grow food for the nation.