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American farms' answer to illegal immigration is to grow crops in Mexico
Mexico
Thursday 29 May 2008
Antonio Martinez no longer pays smugglers thousands of dollars each year to sneak him into the United States to manage farm crews. Now, the work comes to him.
Supervising lettuce pickers in central Mexico, Martinez earns just half of the 11,400 pesos (US$1,100) a week he made in the U.S. But the job has its advantages, including working without fear of immigration raids. "Because I never moved my family to the U.S., I was always alone there," said Martinez, 45, who could never get a work permit, even after 16 years in agriculture in California and Arizona. "When I got the opportunity to be close to my family, doing similar work, I didn't even have to think about it." Martinez, now a legal employee of U.S.-owned VegPacker de Mexico, is exactly the kind of worker more American farm companies are seeking. Many have moved their fields to Mexico, where they can find qualified people, often with U.S. experience, who can't be deported. American companies now farm more than 45,000 acres (18,200 hectares) of land in three Mexican states, employing about 11,000 people, a 2007 survey by the U.S. farm group Western Growers shows. There were no earlier studies to document how much the acreage has grown. But U.S. direct investment in Mexican agriculture, which includes both American companies moving their operations to Mexico and setting up Mexican partnerships, has swelled sevenfold to 624 million pesos (US$60 million) since 2000, Mexico's Economy Department told The Associated Press. Major corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Bunge have invested across Latin America for decades, particularly in countries like Brazil, where agribusiness is booming. Some small farmers have cultivated parts of Mexico for much longer, seeking to secure year-round supplies of fruit and vegetables, while taking advantage of cheap labor and proximity to the U.S. But the latest move south has been fueled by something new, farmers say: a way to continue to deliver cheap, fresh farm goods amid the current U.S. political standoff over an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, the majority from Mexico.
Supervising lettuce pickers in central Mexico, Martinez earns just half of the 11,400 pesos (US$1,100) a week he made in the U.S. But the job has its advantages, including working without fear of immigration raids. "Because I never moved my family to the U.S., I was always alone there," said Martinez, 45, who could never get a work permit, even after 16 years in agriculture in California and Arizona. "When I got the opportunity to be close to my family, doing similar work, I didn't even have to think about it." Martinez, now a legal employee of U.S.-owned VegPacker de Mexico, is exactly the kind of worker more American farm companies are seeking. Many have moved their fields to Mexico, where they can find qualified people, often with U.S. experience, who can't be deported. American companies now farm more than 45,000 acres (18,200 hectares) of land in three Mexican states, employing about 11,000 people, a 2007 survey by the U.S. farm group Western Growers shows. There were no earlier studies to document how much the acreage has grown. But U.S. direct investment in Mexican agriculture, which includes both American companies moving their operations to Mexico and setting up Mexican partnerships, has swelled sevenfold to 624 million pesos (US$60 million) since 2000, Mexico's Economy Department told The Associated Press. Major corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Bunge have invested across Latin America for decades, particularly in countries like Brazil, where agribusiness is booming. Some small farmers have cultivated parts of Mexico for much longer, seeking to secure year-round supplies of fruit and vegetables, while taking advantage of cheap labor and proximity to the U.S. But the latest move south has been fueled by something new, farmers say: a way to continue to deliver cheap, fresh farm goods amid the current U.S. political standoff over an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, the majority from Mexico.
