Chinese Farmers Battle for Wages Amid Glamour of Silicon Valley

By Jamilah King Feb 28, 2013

When most people think about Silicon Valley, they don’t think about farmers. Agricultural work seems almost like the antithesis of the Googles and Apples of the world. But a new piece published by Hyphen Magazine exposes the hardships faced by Chinese laborers in and around the world’s biggest tech hub. Li Lovett writes at New America Media, in partnership with Hyphen: > Of the roughly 130 Asian growers documented in this county, the majority are Chinese, and most of the Chinese growers here own land in or on the fringes of urban zones. In areas zoned for agriculture, land can be purchased at $100,000 an acre, according to Aziz Baameur, a University of California farm adviser based in Santa Clara County. However, land in the bedroom communities of Silicon Valley, such as Gilroy and Morgan Hill, could easily fetch between $300,000 and $500,000 per acre. New farmers have few prospects of buying land "unless it’s someone from Silicon Valley who is cottage farming on the weekends," Baameur says. [Read the full story here](http://newamericamedia.org/2013/02/in-silicon-valley-chinese-farmers-wage-battle-for-land.php).