The name for "Bico's Restaurant" which DMV Glen (Clark Middleton) goes into on his search for Dembe (Hisham Tawfiq) was inspired by a now closed diner in creator Jon Bokenkamp's home town.
The name "Los Segadores" means the Reapers in Spanish.
Eli Matchett's backstory closely mirrors the real-life story of Percy Schmeiser in some respects. Like Matchett, Schmeiser's crops were pollinated by genetically modified crops, resistant to herbicide, from a neighboring farm, and he was subsequently sued by the company that created the crop. One detail that is left out of the Matchett story is that Schmeiser deliberately killed the surrounding crops that weren't contaminated and used what was left to plant a crop the next year that was entirely genetically modified.
Aram (Amir Arison) warns of the virus causing a global food crisis. This was the main plot point, complete with a similar red-shaded map in Season 4 of The Last Ship (2014). The virus there was called red rust.