Calling the U.S. farm workforce “critical” is an understatement. Agricultural workers’ labor feeds us. Yet their living and working conditions often do not reflect their immense contributions to society. They face a variety of challenges for at work — difficulties taking leave for sick days or family or personal obligations and harmful working conditions — and outside of work, like securing housing, child care, food, and health care.
Most farmworkers are paid above the minimum wage, and wages, on average, have been increasing in recent years. However, because farmwork is highly seasonal, hourly wage rates provide a misleading indicator of overall earnings. As one example, the average hourly wage rate for California crop workers in 2021 was $17.50. This would translate to annual earnings of $36,000 if these workers were employed full-time and year-round. But farm jobs are seasonal and temporary. Actual average annual earnings for farmworkers were roughly $20,000.
Earnings are just one component of working conditions. Farmwork requires back-breaking exertion, and farmworkers are exposed to harsh environmental conditions — and since most do not have paid time off, they face a difficult decision: Work, and potentially damage their health, or do not work, and do not get paid.
In part because of economic incentives for both employer and employee, outdoor work often continues during high temperatures, pollution, and wildfires; ceasing work at such times can lead to major crop loss, because such environmental conditions damage many fruits and vegetables. During the 2018 California wildfires, the Washington Post reported on strawberry harvesters who felt pressure to continue work through smoke that was thick enough to sting their eyes and throats. From the employer and consumer perspective, getting strawberries off the plants on their normal rotation was crucial to avoid crop loss and supply disruptions.
There have been many national and state efforts to bring U.S. citizens from non-farm backgrounds into the occupation: the 1965 federal A-TEAM initiative (Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower), Georgia’s 2011 program to replace farmworkers with probationers (there are also prison-run farms, but that is a whole different topic), and efforts by regional growers associations. Not surprisingly, they have failed. Most people cannot tolerate the high physical demands and long hours — and don’t have the unique and underappreciated skillsets — that one needs to be successful at these jobs.
Across these failures, the lessons are consistent: We are incredibly lucky to have people who are able and willing to perform these vital and demanding tasks. Policymakers have tried to improve the earnings and working conditions of farmworkers, many times. Some have been successful — California policies intended to reduce negative health impacts of high temperatures and pollution seem to have mitigated exposure to detrimental climate conditions, for instance — but in many cases the results have been mixed. My own work reveals that California’s well-intentioned effort to improve worker wellbeing by requiring employers to pay standard overtime (that is, paying 1.5 times the normal rate for working more than 8 hours a day or 40 a week) led to reduced hours; worker quality of life may have benefited, but their pay fell.
Scholars haven’t studied California’s 2022 “card check” law, intended to make it easier for farmworkers to organize into unions. But national evidence and findings from other industries suggest that it could benefit some workers, for example by enabling them to negotiate for higher wages, while being detrimental for others, by reducing the number of jobs.
The complex challenges associated with farmwork, along with the demographic characteristics of the farm workforce, have important implications for life outside of work. While some workers are provided health insurance, housing, transportation, and child care by their employers, this is not the norm. According to the most recent available data on U.S. farmworkers, collected in 2021-22, just 18% had employer-sponsored health insurance, while 43% had government-sponsored coverage. Only 8% lived in housing paid for by their employers, and just 3% lived in government- or charity-subsidized housing.
Social safety net programs fill the gap for many workers in low-wage industries, in essence making their continued employment more sustainable by ensuring their basic needs are met. However, as nearly 70% of hired crop workers are born in foreign countries, and nearly 50% are undocumented, many farmworkers are not eligible for these programs — nor for retirement programs including Medicare and Social Security (even though they pay taxes that support these benefits). Participation rates in programs like unemployment insurance, the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP), and Medicaid are surprisingly low.
Research on undocumented farmworkers and undocumented workers in other industries illustrate many more challenges related to immigration status, including higher rates of mental stress, worse pregnancy outcomes, higher rates of food insecurity, and generally living in fear of deportation and being separated from their families.
This picture of farmwork environments sounds dismal. So, what are the avenues forward? My personal dream for the future of farmwork is a world of farm professionals, where all employees earn living wages and receive benefits, such as paid time off and sick days, enabling them to make better decisions regarding their physical and mental health.
Unfortunately, this is not currently economically viable for most farm operations in the U.S. For professionalized farmwork to be feasible, we need to increase the share of grocery store dollars going to farmworkers. Several voluntary certification programs have emerged in recent years, including the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) and the Fair Food Program (FFP). Much as “organic” labels send signals to consumers about growing practices, EFI and FFP labels indicate that the products are grown under operations that meet high standards for social responsibility, mostly related to workers.
EFI-certified farms must meet stringent standards for workplace safety, provide equitable and reasonable pay, have retaliation protections in place to promote reporting workplace incidents, elevate worker voices in operational decision-making, and more. Farmworkers could also benefit from new technologies that enhance productivity. These are likely to reduce worker numbers, but make jobs that are higher paying and less physically strenuous.
Policies are also needed to improve these crucial employees’ lives outside of work. These might include a path to citizenship, as proposed in the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, or might involve reimagining several dated programs that once provided affordable housing, health care, and education to farmworkers and their families, but that are less relevant to today’s farm workforce.
A recent exposé by reporters at the Sacramento Bee outlined seemingly easily solvable issues with California’s migrant farmworker housing program, which is intended to provide low-cost housing for farm employees who engage in follow-the-crop migration, moving with the harvest seasons to piece together year-round agricultural employment.
The regulations guiding these migrant housing centers have not been updated since the 1970s and require farmworkers to leave the housing during non-peak agricultural season. The intention is to ensure that housing remains available for migrant farmworkers, but this is less relevant for today’s farm workforce, who are more settled and more likely to have children. These housing centers could better serve modern farmworkers and their families by simply remaining open year-round. This would improve access to safe, affordable, and centrally located housing and prevent disruptions to school for the children of farmworkers.
While the challenges for our farm workforce are immense, there are also many opportunities. The solutions I have outlined, among others, have the potential to enhance the well-being of these crucial workers and contribute to a more just and equitable society.
It’s vital we make them work — for us all.
Alexandra E. Hill is an assistant professor of cooperative extension in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. This was written for Zócalo Public Square.