Page 39 - Farm and Food Policy Strategies for 2040 Series

Will immigration reform solve the labor issue?

Unfortunately, for U.S. agriculture, as demand for U.S. farm labor has increased, agricultural
employment in Mexico has also increased, from about 6 million workers in 2011 to 7 million in
2017, according to ERS. In part, the change reflects the expansion of labor-intensive fruit,
vegetable, and tree nut production in Mexico, some of which is destined for U.S. grocery stores.

“A major change in Mexican agriculture since the turn of the 21st Century has been the
expansion of fruit, vegetable, and tree nut production—the same sectors in which U.S. growers
traditionally have relied on foreign-born labor. Between 2000 and 2016, Mexican production of
these commodities increased from about 27 million metric tons to 40 million metric tons—an
increase of 47%,” according to ERS.

Moreover, agricultural employers in Mexico are not only competing with the United States for
farmworkers, they are also competing with Mexico’s industrial and service sectors.

“The declining farm labor supply in Mexico suggests that securing more guest workers from
rural Mexico will not adequately fill U.S. agriculture’s long-run labor needs. Looking farther

south for guest workers would also involve challenges. The rural population of Central America

is smaller than that of Mexico (19 million for Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala,

Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama combined, versus 26 million for Mexico, according to 2017
data from the World Bank),” ERS states.

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