by Roger Allbee of Townshend, republished from his 10/24/24 post on his blog, “What Ceres Might Say”
Immigrants play a vital role in our U.S. food system. Each day, the food we consume is likely handled by guest workers, who comprise 21% of all employees in the U.S. food industry. According to an April 2020 report by the Migration Policy Institute, immigrants are essential workers throughout the food supply chain, including agricultural workers, food processing, transportation, wholesale distributors, and grocery staff.
In the food processing sector alone, immigrants make up 35% of meat processing workers, 34% of those in commercial bakeries, 30% in fruit and vegetable processing, and 25% in seafood and other food processing areas. It is estimated that approximately 25% of workers in farming, fishing, and forestry occupations are undocumented. The Center for American Progress reports that nearly 1.7 million undocumented workers are involved in the U.S. food supply chain, with agriculture having the highest percentage of undocumented laborers in the workforce over the past three decades
In Vermont, guest workers are also essential on dairy farms and in fruit and vegetable production. It is estimated that as many as 1,000 migrants work in milking parlors and dairy barns in the state. According to the Vermont Farmworker Solidarity Project, “one-half of Vermont’s milk comes from the labor of undocumented workers,” and farmers employing these workers affirm that they could not survive without them. In the fruit and vegetable sectors, around 400 seasonal workers in the H-2A federal visa program are employed annually in Vermont.
According to Food Connects, 11.3% of farm work in Vermont is performed by H-2A seasonal workers. The Vermont Farm to Plate program notes that labor needs and costs are high and that retaining a seasonal workforce is a challenge, resulting in wholesale farms being heavily dependent on H-2A workers. These farms assert that they would be unable to operate without these workers. In dairies across the U.S., 80% of the milk supply comes from farms that employ guest workers, with immigrants performing 50% of the labor. However, the H-2A seasonal program does not meet the full-time labor requirements of U.S. farms.
The need for guest workers in food production is not a recent development. During World War I, when migration from Europe declined, growers lobbied for the establishment of the first guest worker program, which operated from 1917 to 1921. A similar program was created during World War II due to labor shortages. Today, the lack of farmworkers is a pressing policy issue, with approximately 20% of agricultural products going unharvested nationwide. This scarcity significantly impacts food availability and prices. An article in Newsweek, dated March 12, 2024, titled “America Has a Farming Crisis,” reports that “the United States lost 141,733 farms over the course of five years, in part due to a broken workforce system that has led to a worker shortage.” A 2019 survey by the California Farm Bureau Federation found that 56% of California farmers could not find all the workers they needed in the previous five years.
Over the years, there have been multiple attempts to address immigration laws concerning farm and food labor needs. As recently as 2022, farmers across the U.S. united to advocate for national immigration reform through the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which aimed to ease labor shortages and lower food prices. If enacted, this legislation would have created a path to citizenship for undocumented agricultural workers and reformed the seasonal H-2A farmworker visa program, among other measures.