Farm Labor and Mexico’s Export Produce Industry Farm Labor and Mexico’s Export Produce Industry Agustin Escobar, Philip Martin, and Omar Stabridis October 2019 ISBN: 978-1-938027-90-1 This research report was made possible through generous grant funding support from the Walmart Foundation. Views expressed in this report are those of the authors and not the donors. Some of the pictures used in this book are from public sources and from project researchers working in Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Baja California and Sinaloa. All other photos provided courtesy of shuttrstock.com PREFACE 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7 KEY FINDINGS ............................................................................9 MAJOR RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................10 INTRODUCTION 17 1 MEXICAN MIGRANT WORKERS: LOS ANGELES TIMES..........22 POLARIS: TRAFFICKED WORKERS ..........................................34 URBAN INSTITUTE: TRAFFICKED WORKERS ..........................39 THINKING ABOUT TRAFFICKING .............................................43 MEXICO: AGRICULTURE AND EXPORTS 49 2 FARM STRUCTURE AND SALES...............................................51 MEXICO’S FRUIT AND VEGETABLE EXPORTS ........................55 MEXICO’S FRUIT EXPORTS 63 3 AVOCADOS................................................................................66 BERRIES ...................................................................................69 MEXICO’S VEGETABLE EXPORTS 93 4 TOMATOES................................................................................96 BELL PEPPERS .......................................................................102 CUCUMBERS ..........................................................................103 MEXICO’S LABOR FORCE AND FARM WORKERS 107 5 LEVY’S ECONOMIC CRITIQUE ...............................................112 SINALOA FARM WORKERS ....................................................115 6 MEXICO’S FARM WORKFORCE 119 WORKER SURVEY: 2019 125 7 MIGRATION AND DEMOGRAPHICS.......................................129 WAGES ...................................................................................133 INCOME AND POVERTY ........................................................135 WORK-RELATED BENEFITS ...................................................137 RECRUITMENT AND ETHNICITY ............................................144 HOUSING ................................................................................145 CASE STUDIES AND FOCUS GROUPS: 2019 149 8 SOUTHERN JALISCO .............................................................151 LOCAL WORKERS ..................................................................152 MALE MIGRANT WORKERS ..................................................152 FEMALE MIGRANT WORKERS ..............................................157 OLDER WORKERS AND CHILDREN ......................................165 JOB COMPARISONS...............................................................165 WORKER-IDENTIFIED PROBLEMS ........................................167 CASE STUDY CONCLUSIONS ................................................172 9 CONCLUSIONS 177 BIBLIOGRAPHY 182 APPENDIX: WORKER PROFILES 191 ALEJANDRO............................................................................191 MARIO ....................................................................................198 FELICITAS ...............................................................................203 BEATRIZ ..................................................................................207 EDITH.......................................................................................213 SANDY ....................................................................................214 ERNESTINA ............................................................................215 ESMERALDA ...........................................................................217 GOVERNMENT AGENCIES .....................................................219 IV PREFACE he United States imports fresh fruits and vegetables Tfrom Mexico, where reports of poor conditions and abuse of workers on farms that produce tomatoes and ber- ries for US consumers have raised concerns. These reports are bottom up in the sense that they describe the wages and working conditions of particular workers without providing a top-down picture of average conditions for workers employed on export-oriented farms. This study develops a statistically valid picture of the average conditions of workers employed on export-oriented farms. Agustin Escobar, Philip Martin, and their colleagues reached three important conclusions. First, Mexico has a competitive advantage in producing some fruits and vegetables because of its favorable growing climate, lower labor costs, and widespread use of pro- tected culture or plastic-covered hoop structures that raise yields and reduce pest and weed issues. Second, Mexico’s export agri- culture is dominated by large farms that often include US partners who provide production and marketing assistance and increase grower sensitivity to worker wages and working conditions. 1 Third, the expansion of export-oriented agriculture is reducing rural poverty in Mexico. Almost all farm workers in export-oriented agri- culture earn more than the Mexican minimum wage, and many earn two or three times the minimum wage during the harvest season. More than 90 percent of workers on export-oriented farms report that their employers have enrolled them in Mexico’s comprehen- sive social security system, IMSS (Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social), which provides health care and other benefits to covered employees. However, some workers report that they do not receive services from these payroll-tax supported government agencies. Export-oriented agriculture is expanding in northern and central Mex- ico, drawing workers from poorer mountainous areas and southern Mexican states to richer areas, a migration pattern that may speed upward mobility for farm workers and their children. The combination of Mexico’s competitive advantage (which fuels agricultural expansion), frequent international partnerships that are sensitive to labor conditions, and higher wages and more opportu- nities for some of Mexico’s poorest residents leads to the con- clusion that export-oriented agriculture is a success story. In our opinion, supporting and improving wages and working conditions in export-oriented agriculture requires dealing with three major labor issues: migrants, benefit programs, and a future strategy. First, export-oriented agriculture is expanding in relatively richer areas of Mexico that have few additional local workers, increasing migrancy and the use of contractors to recruit workers. Although Mexico certainly needs to better regulate labor contractors to re- duce the potential for worker abuse during recruitment, the greater need is a strategy for farm worker migration. Should family or solo migrancy be encouraged? Moving families to areas with more op- portunity means that migrants and their children may benefit from higher wages, better schools, and upward mobility, but migrants 2 FARM LABOR AND MEXICO’S EXPORT PRODUCE INDUSTRY who settle in host areas may face backlashes. Leaving migrant families in poorer areas while solo adults send home remittances, by contrast, leads to better housing and more spending on chil- dren’s schooling and health care, but may not transform poorer areas into richer areas. Second, the current model in which almost all farmers pay social security taxes but some of their employees do not receive benefits is unsustainable. There are three options to maintain formal jobs on export-oriented farms: government agencies provide benefits to workers, offer employers credits against payroll taxes for health care, child care, housing, and other employer-provided services, or some combination of both. Of course, credits for privately provided services raise issues of who ensures that farmers are actually pro- viding services and that these services satisfy quality standards. Third, Mexico needs a future-oriented strategy for export-oriented agriculture. Labor costs are rising in both Mexico and the United States, as farmers on both sides of the border compete for the same workers to fill seasonal jobs. Most US farmers are responding by investing in housing to employ H-2A guest workers from Mexico and speeding up the development of labor-saving mechanization, while others are investing abroad in places with the labor, climate, and infrastructure to produce fruits and vegetables for Americans. The ways in which fresh fruits and vegetables are produced may change in the next decade in response to rising labor costs in both Mexico and the United States. Uncertainties about trade policy, technological developments, and guest worker policies raise ques- tions about the optimal level of private and public investment in housing, health care, and other facilities for migrant and seasonal farm workers whose numbers may shrink quickly in the future. For example, if strawberry harvesting machines prove viable, will they spread quickly in the United States and Mexico, displacing most of 3 the 75,000 workers employed in the two countries to harvest the most labor-intensive commodity in North America? Mexico’s export-oriented agricultural sector provides good jobs for low-skilled rural Mexicans, but the industry is at a crossroads. Stakeholders require better data, effective protective labor laws and their enforcement, and an employer-worker-government