18 hours: A day in a date tree

Unsung heroes. These are the thousands of migrant workers who cross every day from San Luis, Mexico to the United States to work in the agriculture fields in both Yuma and Imperial counties.

Even though we are the lettuce capital of the world, several of these workers cross into the U.S. every day to harvest other crops that are in season.

News 11 decided to follow one migrant worker to see what a day in his life is like. His name is Efrain Pizano. He works not on the lettuce fields on the ground but high up in our palm trees to harvest dates.

With the responsibility of giving his wife and three kids a better life, he showed us the sacrifices he has to make on a daily basis. From before the sun rises to much after the sun sets, Efrain’s work days last nearly 18 hours. This is all to help make our agriculture industry the billion dollar industry it is today.

His story, just like that of thousands of field workers, is one of overcoming obstacles, hard work, and sacrifice.

After waiting more than three hours to cross in the morning, Efrain pulls up in his yellow two-door coupe. Then, off to a quick meet and greet at the McDonald’s parking lot, where he told us he’s been functioning on an average of five hours of sleep per night for the past two decades.

It’s just a few minutes after 5:00 a.m., the sun hasn’t risen and Efrain is the first to arrive.

His shift doesn’t start till 6:30 a.m., so every opportunity to get some shut-eye counts.

“If I happen to cross earlier in the night, I just park my car on the street and doze off for a couple of hours before it’s time to get to work,” Efrain said.

From the McDonald’s parking lot, he heads to his worksite for the day: date palm trees in Bard, around 15 minutes northeast of Winterhaven. It’s around a 45-minute drive from the border – something he has to do six days a week between Monday and Saturday.

When 6:30 a.m. comes along, the workers who are licensed to operate a platform machine are here. They are the ones responsible for lifting Efrain 45 feet off the ground and since these date palm trees grow every year, he goes higher and higher each year.

Harnesses are on. Hooked onto the platform. Time to ascend and get to work.

Efrain essentially bends all of the palm tree branches and the only way to do that is by using his own arm as a lever to bend them. These branches have the early stages of a date. At this phase, they look like green peas which he ties together so they hang downwards.

After he leaves, someone goes back up to the same palm tree and removes any excess peas from the branch so that there’s enough room for the date to grow. This happens within three to four months.

He makes 12 dollars an hour doing this nine hours a day, six days a week.

This is his job between April and November of every year and it’s been this way for over 20 years.

He’s become so good at it that at times, he even unhooks himself from the platform and stands on the tree’s branches – a fall from this height could be deadly. But fear of heights has never been an issue, not even when he started working with dates back in 1998.

It takes around 20 minutes to work through a palm tree and he covers between 11 and 12 of them a day. These particular dates are organic so no pesticides or fertilizers are used on them.

By August, they are ready to eat. That’s when they go straight from these trees to the packing facility and from there, to the grocery store.

He does this till around 4:00 p.m. with a few breaks in between. After he’s finished for the day, he heads back to his family in Mexico and gets ready to do it all over again the next day – another 18-hour journey.

Even though we are not in lettuce harvesting season, Efrain explained the immigration crisis along the southern border has doubled and on some nights, even tripled the wait time.

It’s a very labor intensive job, but one he has nonetheless grown to love.