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 Editorials | Opinions | September 2007 
Farmers' Move to Mexico Hurts Related Industries
 Arizona Daily Star
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 |  | Our view: This should spur Congress to pass immigration reforms as U.S. growers leave in search of steady, reliable workforce. |  | |
Congress' failure to pass comprehensive immigration reforms may be affecting the way our country grows its food; namely, by forcing more farming away from U.S. soil.
What appears to be a growing trend of farmers moving their operations to Mexico and other countries could have some undesirable repercussions, including the loss of farm-related jobs for U.S. citizens.
The New York Times reported Wednesday about a California farmer who moved his lettuce-growing operation to Celaya, Mexico, because he had trouble finding enough workers in the United States to plant and harvest his crops. The farmer told the Times he now has a reliable workforce and the farmhands don't have to worry about being deported.
Some people opposed to comprehensive immigration reforms might see this as progress. They could argue that instead of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, as many farmworkers do now, those workers can find jobs closer to home and boost their local economy.
While that argument has some merit, it ignores the fact that many American citizens hold jobs related to farming. If U.S. farms don't produce crops, many of those jobs could be lost.
"For every farmworker, there are three to 3.5 jobs created in related industries such as chemicals, trucking, refrigeration, fertilizer, packaging . . . a lot of different operations," said Tom Nassif, president and CEO of Western Growers, an agricultural trade organization whose 3,000 members grow roughly half the produce in the United States.
"If you lose a good portion of those farm jobs, you could be talking about the loss of a million jobs or more in the United States."
Gary Thompson, head of the University of Arizona's department of agricultural and resource economics, agreed jobs could be lost.
"Job losses would ripple through the economy," Thompson said. "Legal workers in packing and shipping, truck brokers and truckers, people involved in processing — if enough firms move to Mexico, those jobs could be in jeopardy.
The Times' story was about only one farmer, but there are indications that more American farmers are moving operations abroad. It's not something farmers want to publicize.
"Not everyone wants to tell us where they are farming," Nassif said.
The Times reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., showed a map on the Senate floor in July indicating that Americans growers were cultivating more than 45,000 acres in the Mexican states of Guanajuato and Baja California.
"Farmers are renting land in Mexico," Feinstein told the Times. "They don't want us to know that."
There are other issues with farms leaving the United States.
Nassif and Thompson both said food safety could become a concern because farmers would not have to follow U.S. regulations when growing crops abroad.
Nassif also said that if U.S. farms become idle, those lands are more likely to be developed, which would mean a loss of open space.
Whether moving agricultural production out of the country would increase or decrease the price of foods at the grocery store is not known.
Thompson said it's too soon to tell whether consumer prices will go up. Nassif said he's already starting to see higher prices for commodities but didn't provide data.
Many of the worries related to the offshoring of farms could be mitigated if U.S. farmers have access to a steady labor force. That's why it's important for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reforms that include a guest-worker program or AgJOBS, a program that would provide the farm industry with the seasonal workers it needs.
AgJOBS, the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act, was part of the comprehensive immigration-reform package that Congress rejected this summer.
While it is unlikely that a comprehensive immigration package can be passed soon due to election-year politicking, we believe Congress can take up AgJOBS separately, just as it has passed some border-security bills as stand-alone measures.
AgJOBS may help keep some American jobs from becoming extinct. It could also keep American farmers on U.S. soil. |
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