'Trimmigrants' Flock To Northern California's Marijuana Harvest
MENDOCINO COUNTY (KPIX 5) – It's harvest season for the state's number one cash crop: Marijuana. Migrant workers from all over the world are flocking to Northern California to find work.
Called "trimming," it's a mostly underground industry that KPIX 5 got exclusive access to.
Right now, it's the busiest time of year for medical marijuana farms in Mendocino County. At the farm KPIX 5 visited owner Nikki was training some new workers on the art of trimming. "You basically don't move your scissors, you move the bud," she explained. "Some people just have it and some people don't."
"I feel like I have kind of gotten the hang of things pretty quickly," said one of the new trimmers. She didn't want to use her name, because what she is doing is illegal under federal law.
"The cause is kind of important to me, well it's very important to me actually. Doing something that I believe in and saying hey I'm not afraid to hide this part of myself," she said.
She's also the farm's webmaster, and says she's here for the learning experience. "I am from the Midwest originally, so a lot of people from there are coming out here that are into farming, and cannabis."
Trimming is paid by the pound: The going rate is $150. The more workers trim, the more money they make. At Nikki's farm, it's quality over quantity, so a pound is about a day's work.
The finished product, called Swami Select, is available at Harborside dispensary in Oakland. It's organic and sungrown, a new and popular trend in the industry.
One thing is for sure: Business up in Mendocino County is booming. The local head shop in Laytonville can barely keep up with demand. The hot seller: trimming scissors.
Store manager Erica Lopez says people come in every day looking for work, even though a sign on the door warns them not to bother. "There's nothing we can really tell them," she said.
Instead the "trimmigrants" as they are known look for work from the side of the road. "This year is the first time for me, yeah I am really excited," said Alex. He and his friends came all the way from France.
"It's like El Dorado and movie for us," said Clem, one of Alex's friends.
A movie they admit can sometimes get a little too real.
"Yeah we heard some gunshots," said Ro, also a friend of Alex.
"Some missing people," said Clem.
Nikki hears stories too. "They will put them in a car and mask them so they don't see where they drive. And they have to stay inside the building yeah, I mean it sounds like scary stuff," she said.
She sees the trimmigrants: "That's when they stand on the side of the road, making a scissor sign with their hands" she said.
But she's never picked one up. "I would not recommend young people to just come here expecting to find a job."
At her farm it's just friends and family, and attention to detail.
Boutique organic farms like Nikki's take good care of their employees, but conditions can get much tougher on mega-grows, where assembly line trimmers are often forced to work 10-to-15 hour days.