Correcting misconceptions on who’s working in the fields

Americans don’t want to pick apples, harvest lettuce, thin grape bunches, kneel down all day picking strawberries.

That’s just not true, according to someone who should know about who’s working in the fields: Craig Regelbrugge, AmericanHort senior vice president of industry advocacy and research and co-chairman of the Agricultural Coalition for Immigration Reform.

“I think we need to be careful with our language around this issue,” he said during a Sept. 26 session on labor at the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association’s Conference. “It’s very easy to say that this is work that Americans simply won’t do,” he said.

In fact, about a third of the 2-2.5 million farmworkers in the U.S. are Americans. True, most of them were born in other countries, or are just one generation removed, but they are U.S. citizens.

What is absolutely true, however, is that willing able-bodied Americans who are currently seeking work are not “choosing” to go into an ag labor positions.

The number of U.S. citizens seeking these jobs is just a fraction of the overall workforce, Regelbrugge said.

Looking at the overall ag picture — including dairy and other industries — 75% of those working on farms these days were born in another country, many in Mexico.

That conforms with many assumptions people have about ag labor. But Regelbrugge said within those demographics, there have been some major changes.

Those changes, he said, could affect the available labor pool for farm work.

According to the most recent National Agriculture Worker Survey, the average age of ag workers, as with U.S. farmers who own the land they work on, is getting older. Working in the fields used to be for young, single men, who followed the harvests from Florida up to the Eastern Shore or from California to the Northwest.

• But the survey numbers tell a different story:
• The average worker’s age is 40.
• 14% are 55 or older.
• Average number of years worked in agriculture is 14.
• Average number of years at current employer is 7.
• Two-thirds are married, and 60% have children.
• 84% consider themselves “settled” and don’t travel harvest in other regions.
• In the late 1990s, nearly a quarter said they were recent arrivals working in ag in the U.S. for the first time. That’s dropped to 2%.

Regelbrugge said it’s not a retention problem. It’s a replenishment problem.

And that’s what growers are dealing with even as the rhetoric ramps up about immigrants, and is sure to get louder with an ag worker bill. That’s why growers need to be as vocal as ever to sell consumers on why immigration/labor reform is needed

Chris Koger is The Packer’s news editor. E-mail him at ckoger@farmjournal.com.