Migrant workers essential to Ohio farmers despite national perception
(Tomatoes sold at the Athens Farmers Market, 1000 E. State St. Athens, Ohio. Farmers rely on migrant and seasonal workers to insure they can plant, harvest and sell locally-grown produce.)
Scott Witten considers the employees at his farm a family, even though they live thousands of miles away.
Witten, who owns Witten Farms in Lowell, Ohio, employed about 45 migrant employees this year to work on his produce farm from April to November. The workers come from El Salvador and Mexico, many of them being family members or friends of people who have been working on the farm for more than a decade.
“It’s basically a family,” Witten said “They are really lined up looking for the opportunity to come up here.”
The farm does not have any local people working for it, Witten said. That’s not because locals didn’t meet the qualifications for the job — they just didn’t apply in the first place.
“This business wouldn’t exist without migrant and seasonal workers,” Witten said.
President Donald Trump’s move to enact harsher immigration policies, especially those aimed at Latin American countries, makes farmers like Witten fear for a future without them.
In Ohio, there are about 75,000 farms, according to the most recent data. There were more than 13,000 migrant farm workers in the state of Ohio in 2010, according to a report put out by the Latino Affairs Commission of Ohio.
A migrant farmworker is a seasonal employee who had to travel to do work and could not return home in the same day. Seasonal farmworkers are defined as people who work 25 or more days in farm work, earned at least half of their income from agricultural work and were not employed by the same employer year round, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Trump has been vocal about his plans for immigration reform since he hit the campaign trail in June 2015. The administration plans to be more strict on immigration reform by adding more immigration law enforcement, prioritizing American workers for jobs, and building a wall on the border with Mexico, according to a plan posted on the president’s website.
(Local produce being sold at the Athens Farmers market, 1000 E. State St. Athens, Ohio. Without migrant and seasonal workers, many farmers would have to import produce and would lose the fresh aspect of their products.)
Recently, Trump has shown support for the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act, which would cut the number of green cards issued by half. He also announced the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals act, or DACA, which protects children of undocumented immigrants from immediate deportation and issued them work permits. The rhetoric has not specifically discussed the way those changes would affect agriculture in the U.S. However, the idea of preserving American jobs has been one of the main themes behind the Trump administration’s immigration proposed reform. The complication is that few U.S. citizens are willing to take seasonal jobs in fields and orchards.
“The majority of native-born Americans will not do the physical and strenuous work in all types of weather,” said Maria Goeser, who works with the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission. “Migrant and seasonal farm workers are the only ones that will take these jobs. If we don’t have them doing these jobs, we would be paying higher prices for fruits and vegetables.”
Currently, the federal H-2A temporary agricultural program allows employers to bring nonimmigrant foreign workers to perform migrant or seasonal work. Outside of the federal level, many states, including Ohio, have in-state migrant and seasonal farmworker programs.
The Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Act provides protection for workers and registration of contractors who employ migrant and seasonal farmworkers. The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection program regulates the migrant workforce by establishing employment standards related to wages, housing, transportation disclosures and recordkeeping. It requires farm labor contractors to register with the U.S. Department of Labor.
There are 106 licensed agricultural labor camps in Ohio, according to a report put out by the state’s Latino Affairs Commission. An agricultural labor camp is a location that houses migrant workers in the same area they work. The number of migrant and seasonal farm workers at each camp varies from fewer than 10 to more than 100, but many do not reach that capacity. However, Goeser acknowledged there are many unlicensed labor camps as well as migrant workers who live in Ohio year round, so the number is not an accurate representation of the total number of migrant workers in the state. There are no camps on the report in Athens County, but there are a few camps in neighboring Meigs and Washington counties.
Michael Dronina, a employee at Arnold Farms in McConnelsville, Ohio, attributes the rising populations of migrant and seasonal workers to a cultural work ethic.
“They are important because they will work cheaper and harder than the American people because the American people are spoiled,” Dronina said.
Arnold Farms, which produces many crops including tomatoes and sweet corn, does not utilize migrant workers at its operation. However, Dronina sees a big influence the workers have in Southeastern Ohio.
“There would be a lot more people going hungry if migrant workers didn’t exist,” Dronina said.
The number of migrant farmer workers needed in Ohio depends on the season and weather. Some advocacy groups want migrant workers to stay around an area so their children can grow up and get better jobs because “they want the American Dream,” Witten said.
Witten Farms is a fruit and vegetable operation with more than 20 satellite markets stretching from Ravenswooed, W. Va. To the suburbs of Columbus. The farm grows its own produce to sell at markets, and utilizes migrant and seasonal workers to care for and pick the crops, which include sweet corn, tomatoes, peaches, strawberries and more.
“We would not even be able to come close to running the same operation without them,” Witten said of his workers from south of the border. “It would shut us down. It would completely alter the way we run our business. They’re the sole labor force we have up at the farm.”
Aside from agriculture, the largest industries that hire migrant and seasonal farm workers are landscaping, fisheries and forestry. The federal regulations about migrant and seasonal workers are monitored by advocates who collect information about the needs, concerns and characteristics of the workers in each state.
The peak season for recruiting, registering and placing workers to farms depends on the growing season. For row crops and orchards, the peak season is May through November. Ohio is in the top 20 states with migrant and seasonal farm workers, ranking at No. 14, according to Goeser.
John Rice, owner of Oakmore Farms in Reedsville, Ohio, does not employ migrant workers, but he had previously worked as a county extension agent in Muskingum County. As a county agent, he acted as an adviser to many farmers and was in contact with migrant workers regularly.
“The migrant workers are good workers, and it’s just too hard to get local workers to do those jobs,” Rice said.
He added that prices would undoubtedly go up without the labor because farmers would have to pay more to produce their crops and retailers would pay more to import fruits and vegetables.
Witten added if they started to have to import crops to sell at their markets, the freshness and quality of the product would go down while prices went up.
“People like ourselves that see the benefit of migrant workers,” Witten said. “We say you have two options. You can either import your food or import your labor.”
The workers themselves also benefit from coming to the U.S. to do farm labor. When they are working at his farm, they make about $20,000 in six to eight months. Witten estimates his workers make a fraction of that amount in their home countries.
Witten sees a negative image about immigrants reflected in his own neighborhood, where many people don’t understand the concept of migrant and seasonal workers.
“They think that these guys are coming in and stealing their jobs,” Witten said. “They don’t think about how these guys are coming in and doing jobs that they don’t want to do.”
