Issues Affecting Farm Workers

While farm workers run the gamut of being citizens, residents, seasonal laborers on guest worker visas, or undocumented workers, most are affected by immigration status.

Farm workers – men, women, children, documented, undocumented, migrant, resident – are on the front lines of the brunt of climate change.

Historically, farm workers have been imported from countries with vulnerable populations, have been a disenfranchised group of workers, and have never had the right to vote.

Our current guest worker program for “low-skilled workers” grants seasonal agricultural visas, or H-2A visas, which allow employers to hire workers from abroad.

Much of the injustice and inhumanity farm workers face stems from their specific exclusion from basic protections that workers in other sectors of society receive.

The same farm workers who work to provide us with food often struggle to make ends meet and provide food for themselves and their families.

Farm work is dangerous. Workers perform repetitive picking motions, bend over for hours at a time, and may become ill from heat and pesticide exposure.

Many workers live in crowded, unsanitary conditions, often lack basic utilities, live in isolated areas, and in many cases must pay exorbitant rates for rent.

Hundreds of thousands of children and teens work as hired farm laborers in fields across the United States.

Systemic obstacles obstruct farm workers and their families in their pursuit of formal education.

Female farm workers endure additional issues, such as sexual harassment or gender discrimination.

In some cases, farm workers experience physical and psychological abuse in the fields. In the worst cases they live in modern day slavery conditions.

Learn how farm workers are organizing to address these issues and more!