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US Farmers Concerned About Mass Deportation Threats

US farmers concerned about mass deportation threats

By Elizabeth Schroeder | 23 November 2024 | 11:00 am

The mass deportations threatened by US president-elect Donald Trump could deal a serious blow to that country’s agriculture sector, which is already struggling with severe labour shortages.

Matt Carstens, the CEO of the largest farming co-operative in Iowa, said Trump’s plan should be approached carefully, Bloomberg reported.

He explained that the sector would be one of the largest sectors in the US that would suffer serious consequences should the incoming administration “move forward with kicking potentially millions of undocumented immigrants out of the country”, the report said.

“The US Department of Agriculture has said nearly half of hired crop farmworkers lack legal immigration status,” Bloomberg added.

According to the report, the proportion of labourers not lawfully authorised to work in the US rose from about 14% between 1989 and1991 to almost 40% in recent years.

At the same time, despite a slight decline in the number of people leaving rural counties in the US since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, an overall decline in population numbers had been evident during the previous 10 years.

The Agri-Pulse website reported last week that producers were worried, chief among them dairy farmers whose operations rely heavily on immigrant labour. “The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), citing a 2015 study, says 51% of the workers at dairy operations are immigrants.”

The executive director of Indiana Dairy Producers, Steve Obert, said he had seen figures indicating that as many as 80% of dairy farmworkers were immigrants, “though he doesn’t know how many lack proper documentation”, the website reported.

“He hopes the new administration will push for comprehensive immigration and workforce reform instead of trying to deport what is estimated to be at least 14 million immigrants, including approximately one million in the agriculture sector,” according to the report.

The website further added that milk producers across the US had warned of “devastating consequences” if they were to lose their workers.

The NMPF also predicted that the retail cost of milk would double, resulting in the US economy taking a US$32 billion hit (about R576 billion).

“If we have mass deportation and the border gets sealed off, bigger problems will be d than just illegal immigration,” Obert said in the Agri-Pulse report.

Referring to Trump’s campaign pledges of lowering inflation and addressing the lack of housing, he said: “All those would be much worse if we lose at least 50% of our workforce.”

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