by Talk to a random farmer and he will tell you that it is difficult work.
“This is a 24 -hour job,” dairy farmer Nate Chtenden from New York told CBS News. “So I need people who are willing to work in shifts at different times of the day.”
But Chengdenden says it is difficult to find those employees.
All this while American farms are in decline. According to the US Department of Agriculture, there was a decrease in the number of farms by 7%between 2017 and 2022, which amounts to around 142,000 fewer farms in just five years.
Farmers are confronted with various challenges in keeping their business running climate change,, ” bird flu outbreaks and higher costs for food and fertilizer. Now many American farmers have to face the possibility that the Trump government will upgrade a large part of the labor force with its threat to deport millions of immigrants without papers.
“It takes a lot of hands to harvest fruit and vegetables by hand,” says farmer Kurt Alstede from New Jersey.
More than two -thirds of American agricultural workers were born abroad USDA. Many of them came to the country via the H-2-visa, but officials estimate that 42% of employees are migrants without papers.
Since his first working day, President Trump has already had one whole series of executive actions To start reforming federal immigration and border policy. Many of them are expected to be confronted Significant legal challengesBut the government has created fear and uncertainty in the community.
United Farm Workers, a trade union, says that there is already an increase in the number of migrants who ask for help.
“The threats are frightening, but at the same time, agricultural workers, more than anyone, understand the reality that this work will not be done without them,” said UFW communication director Antonio de Loera.
Alstede said CBS News that although his employees are legally authorized, he keeps a close eye on Trump to see what his government will then do.
“Everything that happens from a policy point of view and reduces the number of people in our labor force will make it very difficult for industry and certainly for agriculture,” says Alstede. “We would get into major problems if we losing staff.”
Fewer employees could mean fewer home -grown products, says economist Diane Charlton of the University of Montana.
“Because we already import a lot of these foods, consumers may not really see a big impact in the supermarkets, but there will be fewer fruit and vegetables grown in their own country,” Charlton said.
It is still unclear what consequences the mass deportation plan of Trump will have exactly for the agricultural workers. CBS News contacted the White House for comment and repeated the President’s promise to “deport migrant criminals.”
