Amidst the pandemic of the coronavirus, one group of people that is essential to the mass food production of the United States is also at some of the highest risks of an outbreak. Migrant farmworkers are still hard at work across the county while many Americans are able to work from home. The reason these people are much more susceptible to the virus come down to the close quarters that they both work and live in.

Migrant farmworkers are not payed well and a high percentage of them are undocumented. The reason for this is highly political. In our economy in order for food producers to get ahead of the competition, they must resort to cheap and plentiful labor. Because our immigration system makes it so difficult for people to move to this country legally, many people from Mexico and other South and Central America instead move here and are undocumented. And even though American farm labor does not pay well it might be the only choice for undocumented people because it requires no experience and larger farms are willing to hire undocumented immigrants while many other industries are not.

There are a few solutions that may be able to help these migrant farmworkers and immigrants as a whole. While these are longer term solutions and will not stop an outbreak at the moment, the goal from them is to make sure that immigrants no longer need to be in this position. One thing that is very important is making it easier to migrate legally to the United States. This makes so that other industries are more willing to hire immigrants because they are documented, and it also makes it so farms are forced to give their workers at least minimum wage. Another solution is raising the pay of farm workers. This could be done by making a subsidy for large farms, but only if they pay their workers a certain high enough wage. This way the workers are being payed enough to have their own housing. While these are difficult policies to pass and of course will not solve the problem right away, it makes it so that migrant farmworkers are able to have a safer and healthier future.

News Article: https://thefern.org/2020/03/migrant-farmworkers-feed-america-and-theyre-at-high-risk-for-a-coronavirus-outbreak/

Photo Credit: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/01/29/464758284/activists-demand-a-bill-of-rights-for-california-farm-workers