In California citrus, harvest still has a human-scale unit: the hand picking each piece of fruit. The crop is overwhelmingly destined for the fresh market, and that fruit is still harvested by hand, as a report on the industry’s labor challenge puts it.
That makes wage rules more than a line in a payroll system. Citrus growers have long pushed for a more reliable legal workforce, with H-2A among the programs in the conversation. Now California has created a distinct state wage requirement for a defined set of agricultural jobs.
A new state rate for covered jobs
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2646, authored by Assemblymember Maggy Krell, on September 30, 2026. The law takes effect January 1, 2027, and covers specified agricultural workers, including H-2A employees and qualifying domestic workers in corresponding employment, according to Western Growers’ account of the law.
The starting hourly rate is $19.75. It will be adjusted annually according to the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment, so the figure employers use for labor planning will not stay fixed; the law’s wage and adjustment provisions establish the schedule.
The cost travels through the picking crew
For citrus, the practical reach is clearest at harvest, where a crew’s work is tied directly to fruit moving from tree to bin. The change lands in an industry that relies heavily on migrant and immigrant workers and has pressed for immigration and H-2A reforms to make legal labor more reliable.
The law does not reset every agricultural wage in California. Its significance for an individual operation will depend on whether particular employees and jobs fall within its specified coverage. That makes the worker roster and the job attached to each position as consequential to the calculation as the headline rate.
For grove managers and owners, the adjustment mechanism is the unusual detail: this is a floor with a calendar attached, not a one-time number to copy into a budget and forget. A hand crew’s economics may be worked out by the row, but payroll will have to follow the state schedule.