Texas
Related: About this forumImmigrant Workers in Texas Could Fill Farm Vacancies, but They're Trapped in the Valley
Last edited Tue Oct 24, 2017, 11:22 PM - Edit history (1)
For the last two years, Bernie Thiel has watched yellow squash rot in his farm fields outside of Lubbock. The crops werent diseased, and they werent ravaged by pests or pelted by hail, he said. There just wasnt anyone to pick them. Though Thiel has consistently lowered the acreage he plants to squash from 160 acres seven years ago to 60 acres now his aging immigrant workforce just cant keep up anymore. And theres no one to replace them.
Its very, very frustrating because we can move this product. The demand is there, Thiel told the Observer. The labor is just not available.
Along with squash, Thiel also grows other labor-intensive crops, such as zucchini, tomatoes and okra, which must be hand-picked. He has 35 employees working six or seven days a week. Its hard, backbreaking work that most Americans arent willing to do. Thats why he, like many farmers, largely relies on immigrant labor to get the work done.
But theres a problem: Between 50 and 70 percent of immigrant farmworkers are in the country illegally. Texas is home to an estimated 1.6 million undocumented immigrants, and many of those who are available to work on farms live in the Rio Grande Valley, near the Texas-Mexico border. Though large populations of immigrants are clustered in Houston and other urban areas of the state, many already work in non-agricultural industries.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/immigrant-workers-texas-fill-farm-vacancies-theyre-trapped-valley/
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