Felix Ramirez keeps both hands on the wheel of his John Deere tractor as he sits above the rows of dirt at a 15-acre Fancy Farms field in east Plant City. The field is tucked in the back corner of the 110-acre strawberry operation, and on Friday, Sept. 11, it is the focus of the farm.
Strawberry season has started — or at least the preparation for it has.
Ramirez, 28, bumps up and down the flattened field to make beds, two at a time, with his tractor. Unlike some of the tractors in farm owner Carl Grooms’ fleet, Ramirez’s tractor doesn’t have a satellite to ensure the machine is rolling in a precise, straight line.
Ramirez has to do it the old-fashioned way.
“I love my job, man,” Ramirez says. “Playing with big toys. Getting paid to drive these big tractors.”
The day starts before the sun rises for farmhands across Plant City. If strawberry growers want to plant at the end of September they need to have their fields flattened, beds made and plastic draped three weeks before the first plants are dropped into the perforated, plastic holes punched on top of the beds. While farmhands are preparing the fields, they spray a fumigant to mix with the soil. It kills the weeds and enriches the soil, but they can’t plant for three weeks.
Fancy Farms’ entire empire is 230 acres. Grooms has 120 acres at his home and 110 on fields he leases from another strawberry grower and a developer. The secluded 15 acres his farmhands are working on used to be a citrus grove that was slated to be developed into homes and then left abandoned for years.
On a farm this size, the bed- making and plastic-laying processes takes about a week and one half. On farms with around 1,000 acres, such as Astin Strawberry Exchange, the processes can take three weeks. Farmhands would have to do 75 acres a day to be ready to plant in time, according to Grooms.
But even at a relatively smaller farm like Fancy Farms, Grooms says it cost about $30,000 per acre to operate.
A DAY ON THE FARM
Ramirez arrives at Fancy Farms at 6:15 a.m., one hour before the sun peaks over the oaks surrounding the fields. He prepares his tractor by filling the tanks with fumigant and fuel. Everything is “rocking n’ rolling” by 6:45 a.m.
Ramirez recently has been given more responsibility by driving the tractor. It might not have a satellite, but it does have air conditioning. And a radio. A Spanish station murmurs in the background as he readies the green mammoth at the base of the field. Sometimes he laughs at the talkshow hosts. His supervisor can see him through the windows and often asks why he is laughing.
“Just something they said on the radio,” Ramirez says.
Two curved bed shapers are attached to the back of his tractor. He drags the shapers over the flattened field. The soil is funneled through and raised. Other farmhands follow behind to fill the crumbling holes in the beds with soil.
Ramirez reaches the end and turns the tractor around to go over the new beds again. But before he can he has to wait for the farmhands to finish sealing the cracks.
There are four crews, in designated yellow and blue shirts, working the field. Most are H-2A temporary workers from Mexico. Grooms hired about 50 to help with the beds and plastic. He’ll hire another 50 around planting time and another 50 during picking season.
The farmhands filling the holes are from the H-2A program. Ramirez, who was born in Tampa and lives in Springhead, is a domestic worker. He inches his tractor up to give them a warning. They scatter as his tractor lurches forward to go over the beds for a final formation.
This is the second step of preparation. The first is flattening the land. A tractor “fluffs” the fields with a scratching machine it drags behind it. The machine makes the soil loose and brings moisture to the surface. Then another tractor drags a roller over the soil to compress it. The “fluffed” soil looks darker next to the flat soil.
This is where the beds come in. After they’re formed, farmhands lay the plastic. One drives the tractor, and three ride behind on a platform attached to it to spool the plastic from a roll. Two farmhands on the ground hold the edge of the plastic — sometimes stomping it with their feet — to make sure it stays taut on the edge of the bed.
This year Grooms ordered 450 rolls of plastic, each 2,425 feet. That’s over 1 million feet of plastic to cover his fields.
It’s black plastic. The black attracts the sun’s rays and insulates the growing plants in the soil. For more sensitive produce, such as eggplants, white plastic is used.
FOLLOWING A DREAM
It’s easy to spot Grooms watching at the edge of the field. The top of his shirt is unbuttoned in the Florida heat, and he has picked the dirt from under his long fingernails. After 43 years of farming, knowing when to start the preparation is instinct for him.
“It’s in my head,” Grooms says. “Gut feeling. You just go with the flow of what you feel.”
Grooms grew up on a strawberry farm. His father would give him and his brother 10 minutes from the time they got off the school bus to find him in the family’s fields.
“We’d change our britches and grab a biscuit, stick our thumb in the middle and fill the hole with syrup,” he says.
Grooms has spent decades in the fields, but for some of his workers it’s their first time working the land. They have come to earn money to send home to their families in Mexico. Minimum wage is $10.90.
“They look around — they look up at the sky, at the trees,” Ramirez says of the H-2A workers. “I ask them what they think. They speak dialect. They ask about the bugs. ‘What are they?’ I tell them, ‘Ants, ladybugs.’”
Ramirez has worked at Fancy Farms for several years. This season, he knows what to expect. After the beds and plastic comes the planting. Holes will be punched in the plastic by a giant wheel with sharp pegs on the outer rim. Plants are dropped into the holes. This year, Fancy Farms will be growing Radiance and 127 Sweet Sensation varieties.
The planting will be complete in October. The plants will be ready for picking in November, with the bulk blooming in January and February. Ramirez will be there for it all.
“It’s something a kid always has dreams doing,” he says.
ABOUT H-2A
The H-2A program allows United States employers or agents, who meet specific regulatory requirements, to bring foreign nationals to the U.S. to fill temporary agricultural jobs. There are 68 countries that qualify.
To get H-2A workers, employers must:
Offer work that is seasonal or temporary
Demonstrate that there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available to do the work
Show that the employment of H-2A workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
Generally, submit with the H-2A petition, a single valid temporary labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor.
SOURCE: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.