Columns

Fields of plenty

Alabama’s harsh immigration law, HB56, has worked — undocumented immigrants are leaving the state of Alabama in droves. Republican state legislators should congratulate themselves on how well they have done their jobs. Perhaps they could throw themselves a banquet in celebration of their success and feast on some, soon to be scarce, Alabama produce. Or, maybe they could all go on a scenic tour of Alabama’s farmland and look at all of the crops that are withering on their vines. These crops are withering because there is no one available to pick them. Most of Alabama’s agricultural workers are undocumented immigrants and have fled the state in fear of being deported.

So, if the goal of this law was for Alabama’s Latino population to decrease, then these legislators have definitely been successful. However, if their goal was to help Alabama’s economy recover, then these legislators have failed miserably.

According to a report by the University of Alabama’s Center for Business and Economic Research, HB56 has created a shortage of 10,000 workers and could cost Alabama $40 million. Many of these workers come from Alabama’s agriculture sector, a sector that has been dominated by migrant workers for over 60 years.

According to Demetrios Papademetriou, president and co-founder of the Migration Policy Institute, migrant workers have always supported Alabama’s agriculture sector.

“This is a sector and an industry… that a long time ago, going back to the 1940s and probably before that was abandoned. It was abandoned to foreign workers,” Papademetriou said in an interview with The Huffington Post.

However, some proponents of HB56 see the opening of Alabama’s agriculture sector to US workers as an easy way to decrease Alabama’s 9.9 percent unemployment rate — this isn’t going to happen. Alabama farm owners have been extremely vocal about the inability of US citizens to work agricultural jobs. But this is not to say that some of Alabama farmers have not tried to hire legal workers.

Alabama tomato farmer Wayne Smith is one of these farmers, but he has grown disillusioned about his good-intentioned endeavor.

“People in Alabama are not going to do this. They’d work one day and then just wouldn’t show up again,” Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press, echoing the sentiments of many Alabama farmers.

Part of the problem is that on most field workers get paid for the amount of produce they can pick. On Smith’s farm, this amounts to $2 for every 25-pound box of tomatoes. Smith said that someone with experience picking tomatoes can make as much as $300 a day. However, unskilled workers— American citizens— usually make far less.

Many of these workers show up for one day of work, make $25, and then decide to try a line of work that is not as backbreaking as picking produce.

“They are trying very hard,” said fellow Alabama tomato farmer, Ellen Jenkins in an interview with TheGrio.com. “They just don’t have the (skills).”

These workers don’t have the skills, and members of Alabama’s Legislature don’t have the skills. The state of Georgia implemented a similar immigration law earlier this year, and the same thing happened to its agriculture sector. Had Alabama legislators done their homework, or maybe taken a short road trip, they would have know this would happen.

Many Alabama farmers are now having  to watch their produce rot unharvested in their fields. If the field worker shortage continues, many of these farmers will have to make the decision to plant smaller crops next season. This will result in an additional drop in jobs.

Perhaps instead of scaring undocumented farm workers out of their state, Alabama legislators should simply increase the amount of H-2A, guest worker programs. This would allow undocumented farm workers to legally work in Alabama’s fields. Farmers would lose some money in housing costs if this were to happen, but this small loss would be far better than simply letting their produce rot in their fields.

Daniel Renfrow is a senior anthropology and print journalism double major and may be reached at [email protected].

6 Comments

  • People who are here illegally need to go back to where they came from. Period. It's against the law. They are breaking the law and sucking our social services dry; costing us tax payers millions. Those fields, lawns, brows, nails, etc can be taken care of if the company hires their own people—people who are born and raised here who need a job NOW

    • So.. I have an idea. Why doesn't the racist state of Alabama place all of those people drawing unemployment in these jobs?? They quit or refuse? NO MORE BENEFITS! Then we will see who is draining your lovely ( not! ) state of its resources.
      Also, if the immigration system wasn't so ignorant maybe alot of these people would come here or try to become legal. Being married to a US citizen for 9 years!, and being told your marriage isn't real?! Give me a break.
      It's people like you, with your hatred mentality that make me ashamed I'm an 'American'!!

    • Go work in the fields Dorthy. You obviously didn't read the article – American Workers are as undependable as soft pillows.

  • As we all know, Alabama farmers (and other employers) pay such a decent wage for fair work conditions that only illegals rush to work for them, and that using this form of black-market labor is certainly in keeping with our modern abhorrence to slavelike labor. The farmers are, after all, the true victims here, as we poor consumers who may now end up paying 5 dollars for a tomato because of our backward views about illegals. Do I have it right?

    • Let the market prove how much mexican labor has given to the American market, God help our children find an adequate nutritional value out of a pizza. Thank God I keep a garden in my yard oh and I have the skills to feed my family. It will take time for gringos to get the skills and backs to pick veggies, wishing you success. But in the mean time we'll have to pay more for the produce. Picking 101 learn to ignore the pain and keep task oriented in other words leave your problems at home when you come to the fields, learn to live on less.

      • Gringos? I'm from an old Virginia farming family, ca. 1777. Perhaps you've forgotten who was tilling the soil when we were an agrarian society — less than a century ago. And I don't mean the slaves. You may wish to acquaint yourself with some of the U.S. census records from, say, 1790 to 1920, when most U.S. citizens (the vast majority,) not living in cities listed their occupation as "farmer." You're ignorance is both amazing and insulting to those of us without whose pioneering families you'd have no place to call home. And you're little vegetable patch , BTW, would doom your family. To actually feed a family; that takes quite a few acres + livestock, etc. and then some. Not that I would know. Please look up the term "subsistence farming." You'll note it's more than just growing stupid little patio tomatoes.

Leave a Comment