Wellness Clinics Aim to Break Through Barriers to Farmworker Health Care - The Packer

UnitedAg’s wellness centers across California’s Central Valley are trying to break down health care barriers to farmworkers through a holistic, people-focused strategy.

Domestic fresh produce depends on California, and California’s farmworkers face numerous barriers to accessing healthcare. According to reports from the University of California, Merced, half of the state’s farmworkers are uninsured, for example. Combine that with the difficulty and cost of seeing a doctor, plus fears of immigration and lack of trust, and you have a situation where farmworkers often put off care until things are serious.

UnitedAg is trying to change that situation with its network of wellness centers. President and CEO Kirti Mutatkar says she is excited for what the wellness centers are doing for farmworkers — and possibly even for the health care industry overall.

“I’m super, super passionate about this topic because the health care industry as a whole needs to be focusing on the human side of things, and so we are,” she tells The Packer, adding that she doesn’t see UnitedAg as a health plan for farmworkers but instead as an experiment in what health care can be.

UnitedAg, an agricultural trade association providing health and education benefits to members, currently operates six wellness centers in California’s produce-heavy Central Valley. The Visalia center was the first in 2017. Others followed, including in Colusa, Salinas, Santa Maria, Turlock and Chico. Another will be opening soon in Redding.

According to Maribel Ochoa, UnitedAg’s director of communications and membership, the six wellness centers see an average of 20,896 visits from farmworkers and their families annually. However, she adds that these numbers don’t include on-site care or preventative screens UnitedAg conducts at member workplaces.

Mutatkar says that the Chico Wellness Center operated part-time when it opened in 2021, starting at just two days a week, then later going to three. In December 2025, however, the Chico location shifted to being open five days a week due to growing demand for service.

“We felt the need to be full-time here in Chico because just the growth that we’ve seen,” Mutatkar says. “What the clinic represents and what it provides has led to tremendous growth and interest within this region.”

Removing Health Care Barriers for Farmworkers

Citing the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, Ochoa notes that about half of California’s farmworkers are uninsured, with that number being higher at 62% among undocumented workers. Cost concerns such as high deductibles and copays compound with immigration fears to result in low rates of doctor visits.

For Mutatkar, UnitedAg’s wellness centers represent an effort to reduce those barriers through lower costs, reduce time involved with appointments and provide culturally connected staff taking a holistic approach. She summarizes it as a different mindset about health care.

“It is more: ‘How do we provide the care that’s needed in these communities? How do we do it in a very affordable way and the right way?’ Because of that, we are actually looking to expand more clinics in some of the underserved regions within different parts of California,” she says.

In speaking of the Redding center that will open March 1, Mutatkar says the group looks to regions where there are large agricultural communities that are underserved by health care options such as health care providers and urgent care clinics.

“We are expanding into Redding because we realize that Redding has a similar need out there,” she says.

Different Approach to Health Care

Mutatkar points to the approach to care the wellness centers take as something that sets them apart from mainstream health care.

“When you come in, we’re going to look at you as a holistic person and not just for the issue you have come in for,” she says, giving the example of providers asking after other potential issues patients might be experiencing, such as blood sugar or mental health complaints.

Being attentive to the whole person — what they are saying and not saying — asking questions and treating them like family is key, she adds.

“If you and I were to be treated, how would you want to be treated? We took that approach,” she says. “Just treat everybody like it’s your dad or your brother [who] walks in and help them.”

But treating farmworkers like family means the providers need to know the community or, ideally, be from the community, Mutatkar says. This means being selective with recruiting for the wellness clinics. Finding people who have connections with the community helps make those patient-provider relationships stronger.

“When a patient comes in or a call comes in even to UnitedAg, basically what somebody’s imagining on the other line is their parent, their uncle or aunt or mom,” she says.

That holistic, “treat you like family” approach to care is also what Mutatkar calls the successful health care experiment that UnitedAg is doing.

“Not just the clinics, but through UnitedAg, I feel like we are conducting an experiment where if you do right by the people, does it create a financially sustainable health plan?” she says.

Mutatkar says they have at UnitedAg, adding: “What I would like to see is, if UnitedAg enables this and it becomes a norm, then everybody else has to provide that kind of care. How awesome would that be?”

---

Source: The Packer

---