Immigrants, Including The Undocumented, Play Key Role To Ensure US Food Supply
Farmer tells of having to sell when atmosphere towards immigrants turned ugly during Trump years
Linnea Kooistra and her husband, Joel, were dairy farmers in Woodstock, Ill., for 40 years.
The couple had some 300 cows and 250 young animals to milk, and care for, on a daily basis.
About 20 years ago, they had been experiencing frustration with their existing labor pool, and made the choice to move to an immigrant-based workforce.
“It was very hard to find employees willing to be here at 4 in the morning to milk cows. Our day started at 4 [am] and finished about 7 pm, seven days a week. Having a dedicated workforce is essential,” Linnea Kooistra said. “After switching to an immigrant workforce our lives became much easier. Our people were loyal, dedicated workers. If one person was sick, we could call another at the last minute, and they would be here, even on their day off. They were excellent with the cattle, eager to learn, hard-working, and honest. They were also highly skilled and well trained.
“Working on a dairy farm requires veterinary and computer skills, following protocols to ensure milk quality, animal health and well-being, and maintenance and repair of equipment. We were extremely proud of our team,” she added.
Things took a darker turn for the farm again several years ago during presidency of Donald Trump. Trump's xenophobic and racist rhetoric hurt, Kooistra said.
“Our decision to sell the cows in 2018 was in part because we were worried about losing our workforce. The atmosphere regarding immigrants in the workforce was hostile,” she said. “We knew we could not run this business without them, and at our age, we decided to sell the cows. This was a very difficult decision for us after a career doing what we loved.”
Kooistra told her story before a recent Senate hearing looking at immigrant farm workers.
$7 trillion at stake
The economic contributions of the food and agriculture industries total about $7 trillion — or about one-fifth the nation's economic activity, according to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack, who also appeared at the hearing.
And immigrants play a crucial role, which the global COVID-19 pandemic only emphasized, the secretary said.
“When the COVID-19 pandemic first struck, we were given a wake-up call regarding farmworkers. They were deemed essential employees and the pandemic put a spotlight on the importance of this workforce and their contributions to our nation’s food security,” he said. “They worked every day in fruit orchards and dairy farms, and in the blazing heat and the freezing cold, to ensure families had food on their tables.
“It’s not easy work – it’s back-breaking work, for low wages. A Department of Labor survey shows that one third of farmworkers report family incomes below the poverty line, despite the nature of work requiring long hours in the fields and on the farms. And these workers faced an especially high risk of contracting COVID-19, with little recourse for keeping their jobs if they fell ill or were exposed,” Vilsack added. “Yet, farmworkers kept showing up, day after day, risking their health and the health of their families, to secure the nation’s food supply chain.
“These workers are not just essential during a pandemic. They are critical contributors every day to an essential sector of our economy and we should start treating them accordingly – providing them the worker protections they deserve and ending the unnecessary fear so many face day after day without legal immigration status.”
About 49 percent of the immigrants who work in US agriculture are undocumented, according to Arturo Rodriguez, president emeritus of the United Farmworkers labor union.
Vilsack endorsed Senate passage of the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021 which passed out of the House in March, on a vote of 247-174.
“This legislation provides farmworkers – many of whom have lived in this country for years – an opportunity to earn citizenship. With legal status and a path to citizenship, farmworkers would be able to earn higher wages and exercise their rights under our labor laws to demand better working conditions,” he said. “It also includes provisions that give needed certainty to employers and includes funding for farmworker housing so that employers do not have to incur additional expenses.”
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