OUP Blog: Are migrant farm workers disappearing?

Migrant farm workers.
Image by Jeffrey M. Perloff.
via OUP Blog

 By Maoyong Fan, Susan Gabbard, Anita Alves Pena, and Jeffrey M. Perloff
February 26^th 2015 on Oxford University Press's Blog 

Migrant farmworkers plant and pick most of the fruits and vegetables that you eat. Seasonal crop farmers, who employ workers only a few weeks of the year, rely on workers who migrate from one job to another. However, farmers’ ability to rely on migrants to fill their seasonal labor needs is in danger.

From 1989 through 1988, roughly half of all seasonal crop farmworkers migrated: traveled at least 75 miles for a U.S. job. Since then, the share of workers who migrate has dropped by more than in half, hitting 18% in 2012. Because of this drop in the number of migrants, farmers are increasingly struggling to find workers to pick     their crops before they spoil.... Read full blog post on OUP