Mexican labor issues in U.S. food retail markets

To understand food policy in the United States, one must pay attention to Mexican and Central American farmworkers in this country, but also to farm labor in Mexico.

The Los Angeles Times today has started an article series and a remarkable video series on the Mexican workers who produce in Mexico for export to the United States.

The tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers arrive year-round by the ton, with peel-off stickers proclaiming "Product of Mexico."

Farm exports to the U.S. from Mexico have tripled to $7.6 billion in the last decade, enriching agribusinesses, distributors and retailers.

American consumers get all the salsa, squash and melons they can eat at affordable prices. And top U.S. brands — Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Subway and Safeway, among many others — profit from produce they have come to depend on.

These corporations say their Mexican suppliers have committed to decent treatment and living conditions for workers.

But a Los Angeles Times investigation found that for thousands of farm laborers south of the border, the export boom is a story of exploitation and extreme hardship.

One future contributor to a more just food system could be policies that U.S. importers and supermarkets may adopt, stipulating standards for farm labor in the upstream supply chain. To some extent, such policies are being developed. The LA Times article reminds us that these policies are not yet working smoothly.

Another contributor to a more just food system could be changes in the supply and demand for farm labor, leading to higher wages and better working conditions. It is important to pay attention to these fundamental economics, and not just to labor standards that supermarkets promise to adopt.

Two of the best agricultural economists covering this issue are Philip Martin and J. Edward Taylor. Their 2013 report, titled "Ripe with Change" (.pdf), summarizes (in somewhat blander language!) many of the same terrible conditions that the LA Times article reported, while also reporting some promising trends in tighter labor markets for Mexican farm workers. In particular, demand for agricultural production has been increasing across North America, while simultaneously employment demand in other Mexican industries has expanded. An essential question is whether Mexican workers will reap the benefits, or instead whether small increases in wages will provoke large increases in mechanization, leaving workers little better off than before.

What is this grain but blood and bones?

Recently, the Real Food Real Talk site asked several other writers and myself to answer briefly, "What does food justice mean to you?"

Much harder hitting than our answers, though, is this fierce reflection from the medieval poet Deschamps, written in the 14th century at a time when a popular working-class uprising had just been cruelly suppressed by the nobility.

"Therefore the innocent must die of hunger with whom these great wolves daily fill their maw," wrote Deschamps. "This grain, this corn, what is it but the blood and bones of the poor folk who have plowed the land? Wherefore their spirit crieth on God for vengeance. Woe to the lords, the councillors and all who steer us thus, and woe to all who are of their party, for no man careth now but to fill his bags." 

From In a Distant Mirror, by Barbara Tuchman.

Farmers want immigration reform

Nobody understands better than farmers that immigrants to the United States are real people and hard workers, not a caricature.

When the leadership of the House of Representatives last year nearly failed to pass the farm programs, conservation programs, and nutrition programs in the farm bill, it showed that farmers had lost much political influence in the House. Similarly, as ferociously anti-immigrant views recently have blocked immigration reform in the House, farmers again feel the loss of their political influence.

Greg Sargent in the Washington Post this week described the views of Craig Regelbrugge, the co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform:

“I hear from growers frequently who basically say, `I used to be a loyal check writer when the Republican Party called, but at this point, the checkbook is closed,’” Regelbrugge tells me. “I’m hearing from growers who are no longer writing checks supporting the party.”

Likewise, the Post quoted Mike Gempler of the Washington Growers League:

“We’re seeing a lack of response to our needs and concerns from significant parts of the Republican caucus in the House,” Gempler tells me. “They either have ideological issues or they are catering to a more reactionary crowd.”

“We want to see the leadership, including Cathy [McMorris Rodgers of Washington], move on this,” Gempler continues. “The chances for getting immigration reform are lessening quickly. If we don’t get this done by August recess, we’re going to be in trouble as an industry.”

Not all Republicans are anti-immigrant, just those who pander to certain constituencies that use terrible anti-immigrant rhetoric to block reform in the House. In more ordinary times, many farmers have voted Republican, and they likely will do so again in the future. I follow the carefully non-partisan work of the AGree agricultural policy initiative on this issue.

AGree policy initiative encourages comprehensive immigration reform

The co-chairs of the AGree agricultural policy initiative today sent a letter to U.S. Senators encouraging comprehensive immigration reform.

Dan Glickman (former Secretary of Agriculture under the Clinton administration), Gary Hirshberg (Stonyfield Farm), Jim Moseley (former Deputy Secretary of Agriculture under the Bush administration), and Emmy Simmons (former senior U.S. international aid official) wrote:

We applaud the Senate Judiciary Committee’s leadership in moving forward on the bipartisan legislation. This presents a huge opportunity for foreign-born agricultural workers who want to build a better future for themselves and their families and for American farmers and ranchers struggling with serious labor shortages. AGree has initiated and supported efforts to overcome volatile and divisive differences that have doomed past reform efforts and we will continue to use our convening powers and work in tandem with other groups to help achieve a new national immigration policy.

AGree has four principles for immigration policy reform.  These principles seem politically astute, including key themes that one hears both from agricultural producer groups and from immigrant labor advocates:

• Build a legal, more stable workforce in agriculture;
• Develop a practical and economically viable guest worker program that allows employers to hire legal foreign workers and protects foreign and U.S. farm workers;
• Ensure quality of life, good working conditions, and opportunities for food and agriculture workers; and
• Provide more opportunities for farm workers to develop skills and advance their careers within the food and agriculture sector.

The Senate legislation that the AGree co-chairs support is the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, S. 744.  It is very much a compromise piece of legislation.  This week is critical in the Senate, and, even after passing the Senate, the House is even more challenging.

From the perspective of immigrant labor advocates, farm producers and managers are a complicated group of allies.  On the one hand, farmers are a terrific helpful voice, because they speak of immigrant farm workers with respect, articulate the great value that the workers bring to the American agricultural economy, and oppose a deportation-centered immigration policy.

On the other hand, the farm groups insist on an awful tough stipulation in their support for a path to legal status for illegal workers.  The farm groups insist that newly legalized workers be prohibited from moving quickly into non-farm jobs such as construction or food service.  For the farmers, the whole point is that these newly legal workers should stay on the farm, keeping wages in check.

By and large, the Senate bill represents the best possible compromise that immigrant labor advocates could strike with farm groups, so that they could speak with one voice in the political debate.  If immigrant labor advocates and farm groups split, they will be soundly beaten by the anti-immigrant and nativist folks in Congress.

I participate in AGree as part of its Research Committee, but had no role in the organization's immigration position.  For a scholarly but highly readable account of the current issues, see Philip Martin's article (may be gated) in the January edition of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics.

Mexican farm labor markets tighten up, with possible implications for U.S. farmers and farm workers

The agricultural labor supply in Mexico may be shrinking, a development that is likely to raise wages for farm laborers in both Mexico and the United States.

If this is truly a long-term trend, rather than a short-term response to economic recession or disruption because of recent violence, then it would have several implications.  It could cause some difficulties for U.S. farm owners, and it could somewhat hinder efforts to encourage increased consumption of fruits and vegetables at low prices.  On the positive side, it could help smooth U.S. immigration policy debates, and it would help alleviate hardship for the immigrant workers who play such a central role in the American food system.

An article in the most recent issue of Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy (may be gated), by J. Edward Taylor, Diane Charlton, and Antonio Yúnez-Naude, is titled "The End of Farm Labor Abundance."  Here is the abstract:

An analysis of nationally representative panel data from rural Mexico, with observations in years 2002, 2007, and 2010, suggests that the same shift out of farm work that characterized U.S. labor history is well underway in Mexico. Meanwhile, the demand for agricultural labor in Mexico is rising. In the future, U.S. agriculture will compete with Mexican farms for a dwindling supply of farm labor. Since U.S. domestic workers are unwilling to do farm work and the United States can feasibly import farm workers from only a few countries in close geographic proximity, the agricultural industry will eventually need to adjust production to use less labor. The decline in foreign labor supply to farms in the United States ultimately will need to be accompanied by farm labor conservation, switching to less labor intensive crops and technologies, and labor management practices that match fewer workers with more farm jobs. 

This article may be thought-provoking for readers who participate in U.S.-based sustainable food movements.

For one thing, these movements have been trying to come to grips with labor issues, recognizing that even locally oriented and organic food production in the United States makes heavy use of low-wage farm workers.  It is good that these movements have been giving greater attention to worker advocates, including the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and others, but this attention has to be accompanied by a fearless and honest analysis of the basics of labor supply and labor demand, which are more fundamental determinants of both wages and working conditions.

For another thing -- and here I am generalizing a bit -- many of the thinkers and writers in this movement whose work I generally respect highly are nonetheless trade skeptics to a degree that makes me nervous.  It is sensible to expect high standards from trade policy without straying quite so close to a nativist pessimism in which low-income trading partners are seen as bottomless pits of economic distress.  The reason I am more optimistic than many of my friends about international trade is that I have not yet given up on the prospects for economic advancement that reaches even low-wage labor markets in the countries we trade with -- starting, for example, with Mexico.