Farm work is the physical labor performed by farmworkers and includes all processes involved in growing and packaging any commodities grown on the land. This work is generally paid by the piece; for example per flat of strawberries, pound of cucumbers, etc. The most common result of farm work is fresh, canned, jarred, and frozen fruits and vegetables available to us all.
Some examples of farm work are tilling soil, planting seeds, transplanting seedlings, removing weeds, applying pesticides, staking and pruning plants, harvesting crops, packing crops and preparing them for the market.
Without farmworkers, the U.S. agricultural system could not function. In fact, despite large scale mechanization over the last 50 years, there is no machine that can transplant a tender seedling or harvest a fragile tomato as successfully and dependably as the human hand. Almost all of the produce we buy at grocery stores and markets nationwide has been touched by a farmworker’s hand. Farmworkers not only provide us with the fresh produce we eat each day, but also support the farms and the local rural communities in which they live and work.
Farmworker labor is a part of a much larger economic and political structure that functions around agriculture in the U.S. and abroad. Farms have long relied on a steady supply of cheap labor coming into the U.S. from foreign countries, where the poor job market often forces families to look for work elsewhere.
The U.S. government has historically allowed the flow of these workers into the country through programs such as the Bracero Program (1942-1964) and today’s H2A program.1 The H2A program, however, does not accommodate all the workers needed to run U.S. farms, or all of the workers wishing to enter the Unites States to work.
1 - Durand, Jorge and Douglas S. Massey, Crossing the Border: research from the Mexican migration Project. Russell Sage Foundation, New York, 2004, p. 17.
