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Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'Part of the community': Migrant workers support region's, nation's agriculture industry
About 700 cows need to be milked three times a day at Pennwood Farms. Hundreds of replacement heifers must be cared for, too. There are also the numerous day-to-day tasks that are required to keep the whole operation running smoothly. And a lot of that work is done by foreign migrant laborers. Faces of Immigration logo Glenn Stoltzfus, who co-owns the business in Berlin with his brothers, said there are usually a half-dozen or so Hispanic laborers employed on the dairy farm. He said they are in the country legally, but that he can 'almost guarantee you' that they are not citizens. 'They do a great job,' Stoltzfus said. 'We were struggling to find people because we milk pretty much around the clock. We're milking 700 cows three times a day, and each shift is anywhere from six to seven hours long, so there's not a whole lot of down time between milkings. 'It became very difficult to find people who were reliable that would do that work on a consistent basis.' Stoltzfus said Oscar, the first migrant laborer who started working on the farm about eight years ago, is still there and is respected as a leader among the workers. Others, mostly family members from Mexico, have come and gone over the years. Whenever a replacement is needed, Stoltzfus said Oscar brings somebody new to the farm. 'It sure has taken a load off of us as far as finding new employees, finding people that are willing to do the work,' Stoltzfus said. 'We haven't looked for an employee for a long time.' Somerset County Farm Bureau Legislative Farm Tour | McWilliams Farm Glenn Stoltzfus, Somerset County Farm Bureau dairy farmer representative, speaks during the Somerset County Farm Bureau Legislative Farm Tour at McWilliams Farm in Somerset County on Friday, August 2, 2024. The current group lives together in a six- bedroom farmhouse. They generally keep to themselves when not working and a language barrier does exist at times. But, as Stoltzfus explained, 'They have become part of the community.' He described them as 'good honest family people like we are.' 'A lot of Hispanic labor' Migrant labor is an integral part of the United States' agriculture industry. Approximately 68% of the nation's 2.4 million farmworkers are foreign-born, with the overwhelming majority coming from Mexico, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's National Agricultural Workers Survey for 2019-20. The same report found that 44% of those migrant farmworkers were undocumented and lacked work authorization. Area students experience hands on Ag education Tommy Nagle, right, and Marty Yahner, talk to eighth-grade students from Cambria Heights about harvesting corn that was planted at Yahner Brothers Farm in the spring in September 2023. Pennsylvania Farm Bureau Vice President Tommy Nagle, a beef cattle farmer from Patton, and Cambria County Farm Bureau President Marty Yahner both pointed to the same reason as to why legal migrant labor is used so prevalently. 'For decades, there has been immigrant Hispanic labor in agriculture in America, all over the nation, because the sad reality is Americans won't do the hard job that it takes in many cases on farms, whether it's picking vegetables in the hot summer sun, or pumpkins, or watermelons in California, or working on a dairy farm, or in a mushroom facility,' Yahner said. 'So yeah, there's a lot of Hispanic labor. That's just a fact. Americans won't do those jobs in many cases for any price, for any pay. It's true.' Nagle described the migrants as 'a reliable workforce.' 'The majority of the agriculture community is in favor of labor like that, just because they're unable to find labor elsewhere,' Nagle said. 'I've talked to several larger dairy farms in the area that are paying a very competitive wage, but they still cannot find a conventional workforce to come and work for that. It is difficult work, very labor-intensive at times. 'They're having a tough time. It doesn't really seem like wages are a motivating factor. It's more of the work that's entailed.' Both Nagle and Yahner said there is not much migrant labor in the region. 'Law-biding citizens' There are, of course, differences between legal migrant workers and undocumented people entering the country. A Pew Research Center report estimated there were 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in 2022. The number is likely higher now. President Donald Trump has made issues with undocumented immigration a focal point of his two terms and three campaigns. The number of encounters at the Mexico-United States border has dropped by a large amount since he took office again in January. Most recently, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 7,180 crossings in March, the lowest monthly total on record, compared to a monthly average of 155,000 over the previous four years, according to CBP. Still questions remain about policies going forward, regarding illegal crossings and migrants entering legally to work in agriculture and other jobs. Nagle said there needs to be a 'realistic' plan to meet agriculture's needs. 'As soon as we can have a comprehensive immigration reform out there that puts everyone on the same page and there's a clear vision of what we can do to get workers that would definitely help agriculture,' Nagle said. Stoltzfus said the migrants who work at Penn- wood have not communicated to him any concerns about their residency status. 'I think the administration has pretty much conveyed to the agriculture industry that they're not going to be going after migrant workers or people who work on farms that are law-biding,' he said. 'They're going after the criminals.' Stoltzfus also proposed what he called a 'simple solution' to the overarching issue. 'If someone comes to the border, wants to come in, and wants to work, and has work lined up, give them an ID,' Stoltzfus said. 'They're law-biding citizens. Give them an ID, allow them to come in and work. 'Why is that a problem? Why can't we do that? To me, it seems so simple. But when you get politics involved, whatever, I don't know.'
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Providing farmworkers with health insurance is worth it for their employers − new research
Agricultural employers who provide farmworkers with health insurance earn higher profits, even after accounting for the cost of that coverage. In addition, farmworkers who get health insurance through their employers are more productive and earn more money than those who do not. These are the key findings from our study published in the March 2025 issue of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. To conduct this research, we crunched over three decades of data from the Labor Department's National Agricultural Workers Survey. We focused on California, the nation's largest producer of fruits, nuts and other labor-intensive agricultural products in the U.S., from 1989 to 2022. We determined that if 20% more farmworkers got health insurance coverage, they would have earned $23,063 a year in 2022, up from $22,482 if they did not. Their employers, meanwhile, would earn $7,303 in net profits per worker annually in this same scenario, versus $6,598. Roughly half of California's agricultural employers are facing labor shortages at a time when the average age of U.S. farmworkers is also rising. Some of them, including grape producers, are responding by investing more heavily in labor-saving equipment, which helps reduce the need for seasonal manual labor. However, automated harvesting isn't yet a viable or affordable option for labor-intensive specialty crops such as melons and strawberries. Despite labor shortages, agricultural employers may be reluctant to increase total compensation for farmworkers. They may also be wary of providing additional benefits such as health insurance for two main reasons. First, seasonal workers are, by definition, transient, meaning that the employer who provides coverage may not necessarily be the same one who benefits from a healthier worker. Second, it costs an employer money but doesn't necessarily benefit them in the future if the worker moves on. Most U.S. farmworkers are immigrants from Mexico or Central America. Roughly 42% are immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal authorization, down from 55% in the early 2000s. As the share of farmworkers who are unauthorized immigrants has declined, the share who are U.S. citizens – including those born here – has grown and now stands at about 39%. The low wages farmworkers earn offer little incentive for more U.S. citizens and permanent residents to take these jobs. These jobs might become more attractive if employers offered health care coverage to protect the health of the worker and their household. Farmworkers who lack legal authorization to be in the U.S. are not eligible for private health insurance policies, and many can't enroll in Medicaid, a government-run health insurance program that's primarily for low-income Americans and people with disabilities. Regardless, some employers do take steps to help them gain access to health care services. As of 2025, a large share of farmworkers remain uninsured, including many citizens and immigrants with legal status. Limited access to health care is an unfortunate reality for farmworkers, whose jobs are physically demanding and dangerous. In addition, farmworkers are paid at or near the minimum wage and are constantly searching for their next employment opportunity. This uncertainty causes high levels of stress, which can contribute to chronic health issues such as hypertension. It is hard to estimate the effect of employer-provided health insurance on workers and employers, since labor market outcomes are a result of highly complex interactions. For example, wages, productivity and how long someone keeps their job are highly interdependent variables determined by the interaction between what workers seek and what employers offer. And wages do not always reflect a worker's skills and abilities, as some people are more willing to accept a job with low pay if their compensation includes good benefits such as health insurance. The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
