Deporting farm workers and the cost of milk

November 19, 2024

Good morning!

Did you know that Donald Trump wants to deport members of the 1%? No, not the wealthiest 1% of all Americans, which includes people like him and some of his closest advisors.

I'm talking about hired farm workers, who make up 1% of the U.S. labor force, but produce an abundance of the food we eat.

Of all the campaign promises Trump made, his desire to carry out mass deportations of migrants living in the U.S. has captured most of the attention. This week, he confirmed reports that he would enlist the military after declaring a national emergency to do so and has designated a so-called border czar.

Ironically, the plan has widespread support from many of the same people who were mortified when President Bill Clinton used soldiers to take Elian Gonzalez from relatives in Florida and send him back to his father in Cuba.

Perhaps most ironic is that given the hyper focus on the economy and inflation in the recent election, deporting foreign-born workers en masse would send prices skyrocketing.

So much for the cost of eggs.

Keep reading to learn more about just how important these workers are to our food system. And just a heads up, you won't be receiving this newsletter next week during Thanksgiving week.

Let's talk about it.

Data points (about food and migrant farm workers ) were made

Besides agriculture workers, "mass deportation would remove more than 30 percent of the workers in major construction trades, such as plasterers, roofers, and painters; nearly 28 percent of graders and sorters of agriculture products; and a fourth of all housekeeping cleaners," the American Immigration Council wrote in an October report.

Here are a few more stats highlighting the cruciality of migrant farm workers and our food:

—Hired farmworkers make up less than 1 percent of all U.S. wage and salary workers (USDA Economic Research Service)

—More than 50% of the hired workforce in agriculture is made up of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (USDA)

—The National Agricultural Workers Survey, published in 2022, indicates that the vast majority of agricultural workers is foreign born, to the tune of 70%. Approximately 63% of all agricultural workers were born in Mexico (NAWS)

The average age of a farmworker is 39; only about 50% have completed high school (NAWS)

The Economic Policy Institute notes that about 20% of farmworker households live below the federal poverty line

—Yet, migrant farmworkers contribute more than $100 billion annually to the U.S. economy by supporting food production, a recent factsheet from the American Farm Bureau Federation shows

—If farmers lost their foreign-born workers, agricultural output would fall by $30 to $60 billion (FWD.us)

—The states of California, Iowa, Texas, Nebraska, and Minnesota make up more than one-third of total U.S. agricultural-output value (FWD.us)

—Labor shortages in agriculture could lead to an annual loss of $3.1 billion in GDP due to reduced crop production (New American Economy)

—Stability in the farmworker workforce leads to stability for consumer prices. According to a 2022 published by a researcher at the University of California Davis, estimated that a 10% decrease in labor availability could trigger a 5-6% increase in the prices of fruits and vegetables. Another study from Texas A&M University anticipates retail milk prices doubling should migrant farm workers vanish.

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