Latino Farm Workers

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Latino Farm-Workers

In the United States, agriculture is considered as a major industry. According to the statistics, there are more than 2 million farms in the US, covering an area of approximately 900 million acres (Mobed 367). Although, according to the law, undocumented people are not allowed to work in the farms yet there many undocumented people working on farms. According to the statistics, more than 1.2 million farmworkers, both US citizens and immigrants are unauthorized or undocumented (Mobed 367).

From a historical perspective, the colonist had more access to the agricultural land in the US than they had in Europe. In that time, labor organization was complex as most of the labors were slaves and immigrants. In today there are many immigrants farm workers especially, Latinos who leave their families in search of work so that they can attain necessities of life. However, they have to face multiple difficulties while working on farms.

The main issue that Latino farmworkers face is the language barrier. As most of the Latinos are unable to communicate, they are often unable to understand the instructions and warnings regarding work at the farm

Typically, farmworkers have to perform multiple strenuous tasks and are, therefore, at the high risk of getting exposed to a wide variety of occupational hazards (Halfacre-Hitchcock 56). Due to this, they are also unable to understand pesticide safety training and lack facilities such as health care and education. They are unaware of pesticide-related illnesses and several other allergies. In research conducted by the author Viveros along with fellow researchers, he highlighted that many Latino workers have to face health issues due to language barriers (Viveros-Guzmán 342).

Another issue that Latino farmworkers face is low wages. As many farm owners are familiar that many Latinos are immigrants that came to the US in search of work, so they use their condition as leverage and pay them low wages (Mobed 367). Thus, government officials must revise old policies to facilitate immigrants' farmworkers and the farmworkers belonging from different cultural backgrounds.

Works Cited

Halfacre-Hitchcock, Angela, et al. "Latino migrant farmworkers in lowcountry South Carolina: A demographic profile and an examination of pesticide risk perception and protection in two pilot case studies." Human Organization (2006): 55-71.

Mobed, Ketty, Ellen B. Gold, and Marc B. Schenker. "Occupational health problems among migrant and seasonal farm workers." Western Journal of Medicine 157.3 (1992): 367.

Viveros-Guzmán, Arcadio, and Michael Gertler. "Latino farmworkers in Saskatchewan: language barriers and health and safety." Journal of agromedicine 20.3 (2015): 341-348.