Night Work: A Growing Trend in Western Agriculture?

By staff - Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, March 7, 2019

Farming doesn’t stop just because the sun sets. Across the West, a variety of crops are harvested at night, such as wine grapes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and corn. Harvest, equipment transportation, set up, and maintenance as well as field prep and repairs, irrigation work, and pesticide application are other activities done at night.

Night Work is Increasing

The general, unofficial consensus among a number of professionals involved in agriculture is that night work is increasing. Possible reasons include rising temperatures and heat illness prevention regulations, increasing labor shortages, product quality and taste preferences, time-sensitive harvests, and avoidance of pests.

“The area’s cool nights create better working conditions—not only is the temperature more tolerable, but bees and rattlesnakes stay away at night” explains Lino Bozzano, VP of Vineyard Operation, in the Laetitia Vineyard and Winery blog, “Why We Harvest Fruit At Night.” Head Winemaker, Eric Hickey adds that “grapes are firmer, making them easier to work with.”

Standard databases provide limited information. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics public records report the time of non-fatal injury by fixed time frames that cross day- and nighttime hours (e.g., 4 pm to 8 pm), making it difficult to determine how many accidents occur in the dark or how many accidents occurred from actual farm work versus transportation to and from the work site.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.