Strawberry Fields Aren’t Forever

Rene Abril was rejoicing. He had just flipped the nickel that turned him into a winner.

“Damn!” he cried to the crowd of pickers in the field off Irvine Center Drive near the 405 Freeway in Irvine. “I now got 31!”

It made 31 trays of plump, sweet strawberries--worth $1.15 per 11-pound tray--for Abril, a native of the central Mexico state of Guanajuato.

Abril, 21, and his buddy, Ricardo Velasquez, 18, each had half a tray of berries when they finished picking a section of the 142-acre field shortly before noon Thursday. By winning the coin toss, Abril could complete his 31st tray.

That still didn’t make him the champ, however. That honor went to Ventura Gomez, 26, who shyly acknowledged that he had picked 33 trays of berries and on a good day could fill 100.

No Conceit Displayed

Gomez grinned, showing a mouthful of gold-capped teeth, but displayed no conceit about being the acknowledged champion strawberry picker among the 250 pickers working the field.

“I’m the champion most days, but sometimes others beat me,” he said, shoving his baseball cap down below his eyebrows.

The work of a strawberry picker, of course, is not easy. The picker has to crouch down low among the bushy plants, and his hands must be swift enough to clear the leaves, scoop the berry and deposit it in the tray all in one motion. The hands take on a permanent, green-black stain from continual contact with the leaves and dark soil.

Some, like Gomez, are businesslike about the task of strawberry picking. He has to be, he said. He has a family back in Guanajuato and travels to California for three months of hard labor, during which he must make as much money as he can before returning home.

Abril is younger and more the happy-go-lucky cajoler. He passes the time chattering at his friends in the field, or whistles a tune as he works. Oh, he is fast, but he needs more seasoning to become as good as the recognized champion, Gomez said.

Season Soon Will End

The mood in the fields was generally light-hearted Thursday, partly because the strawberry season will soon end. A trucker who transports the laborers from Stanton and Santa Ana said all the strawberries in Orange County should be harvested by next week.

The 142-acre spread, which CF Farms leases from the Irvine Co., produced a good yield this year, but still the company will not make much money, said manager Don Wall.

“This will probably be the worst year California will see,” Wall said. He said overproduction in the state is hurting strawberry farmers.

“There are too many acres,” he said.

Jim Tamabe, 53, of Garden Grove, was labeling strawberry crates the pickers harvested Thursday before trucking them to a Los Angeles supermarket chain. He said he quit farming strawberries and turned to

trucking when he saw the trend to overproduction.

“Now they’ve got so many berries, they don’t get a good price for them. There’s so many berries this year, the canneries still haven’t set a price on them,” Tamabe said.

He said strawberries probably will go for about 18 cents a pound this year, much lower than the standard 25 cents a pound they would bring in a more normal year. “It’s a tough racket. At this rate, you’re lucky to pay for your labor costs,” Tamabe said.

Abril and Gomez, who have traveled to Orange County strawberry fields from Mexico for the past five seasons, agreed the picking wasn’t as good this spring as in others.

“I’ve had better years. This year, they hired more people, which means we pick less and we get through sooner. But I still made some money. It could be worse,” said Abril, never allowing the smile to leave his sunburned face.