Immigration sweeps of farms cause harm to produce production

Immigration sweeps of farms throughout the United States are causing more harm than good, according to statistics. Chances are, the produce on your table came from California or Arizona. About 40% of agricultural workers in the United States are undocumented, making farms and their labor force vulnerable to immigration enforcement.

With massive immigration sweeps taking place on farms, it is leaving them without their workforce. And in turn, produce is dying on the vine, and consumers could see shortages and price increases at the store.

Edward Vargas, PhD., Associate Professor at ASU’s School of Transborder Studies, joined “Arizona Horizon” to explain how these sweeps look to be harmful toward farmers, their produce, and consumers.

With immigration sweeps are causing fear within the undocumented workforce, farm owners are left to come up with new ways to not let unpicked produce go to waste.

“Whenever there’s uncertainty, a lot of things happen,” Vargas said. “We know that people’s fear of going to work, people scared to take their children to school, people not knowing what’s going to happen next week.”

Vargas poses the question many farmers are asking themselves, “How do we diversify if we do not have people to pick?”

Vargas says that these farmers are resorting to secondary markets. In other words, farmers are looking to how they can repurpose aging crops. In turn, how they can predict the correct amount of crop to plant in future years.

Without people to pick, according to Vargas, there is a push to use automation to harvest the crops; however, there is not a one-size fits all solution. Rock fruits such pears, strawberries and blackberries, need to be hand-picked.

As the ICE raids began, President Donald Trump said he would not target certain industries, including agriculture. According to Vargas, this has not been the case as ICE raids have happened everywhere, even up to dairy farms in Wisconsin.