In the farm fields of the Central Valley, Nicholas Flores is an anomaly — an American among a crew of immigrants picking cantaloupes, says the Los Angeles Times. Farmworkers are becoming hard to find, so California growers are providing better pay and benefits, attracting some U.S.-born workers, although experts say mechanization will be the long-term answer.
UC-Davis rural economist J. Edward Taylor says growers in the West have relied on immigrant labor since the late 1800s, except during the Depression, when Dust Bowl refugees moved to the region to escape drought in the Plains. “According to Taylor’s research, the number of farmworkers coming out of rural Mexico is decreasing by an estimated 150,000 a year. That means U.S. and Mexican farmers will have to increasingly compete for a dwindling pool of labor,” says the Los Angeles newspaper.
The Center for Immigration Studies says farms will need to increase worker productivity vastly in order to survive with a smaller workforce, even if it is better paid and employment is stable rather than seasonal. Taylor says mechanization is likely to reduce the need for workers before wages are high enough to attract Americans. The Times says its analysis of Labor Department data showed that farm wages in California rose by 13 percent from 2010 to 2015 and that wages were highest, $41,940 a year, in Napa County. “Some farmers have resorted to giving field laborers benefits such as 401(k) plans, health insurance, and even subsidized housing,” it says. “But they’ve still struggled to recruit enough workers.”