{"pk":65841,"title":"California sheep and goat ranchers adjust to wage increases","subtitle":null,"abstract":"<p>California’s Assembly Bill 1066 overtime-for-farm workers law increased minimum sheep and goat range herder wages by 250% in 6 years, from less than $2,000 a month in 2018 to almost $5,000 in 2025. However, higher wages did not attract domestic U.S. workers to herding: most herders in the United States are workers from Peru and Mexico who have H-2A visas. Sheep and goat ranchers responded to higher herder wages by assigning more animals to each herder, switching from monthly to hourly wages where feasible, and expanding their herds or exiting the business. More became vegetation managers, earning payments from clients when their sheep and goats consume vegetation on crop lands and solar farms and grass and brush in the urban–wildland interface to reduce wildfire risks.</p>","language":"eng","license":{"name":"Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives  4.0","short_name":"CC BY-NC-ND 4.0","text":"Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.\n\nNoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0"},"keywords":[{"word":"agricultural labor"},{"word":"overtime"},{"word":"herders"},{"word":"H-2A"},{"word":"sheep"},{"word":"goat"}],"section":"Article","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9m67c87g","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Morgan","middle_name":"P.","last_name":"Doran","name_suffix":"","institution":"UC Agriculture and Natural and Resources","department":"UC Cooperative Extension Yolo County","country":"United States"},{"first_name":"Julie","middle_name":"A.","last_name":"Finzel","name_suffix":"","institution":"UC Agriculture and Natural and Resources","department":"UC Cooperative Extension Kern County","country":"United States"},{"first_name":"Alexandra","middle_name":"E.","last_name":"Hill","name_suffix":"","institution":"UC Berkeley","department":"Agricultural and Resource Economics"},{"first_name":"Ruben","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lugo","name_suffix":"","institution":"Impact Ag Labor LLC","department":""},{"first_name":"Daniel","middle_name":"K.","last_name":"Macon","name_suffix":"","institution":"UC Agriculture and Natural and Resources","department":"UC Cooperative Extension Central Sierra"},{"first_name":"Philip","middle_name":"L.","last_name":"Martin","name_suffix":"","institution":"UC Davis","department":"Agricultural and Resource Economics"}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2026-05-22T19:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/californiaagriculture/article/65841/galley/50476/download/"}]}