[colombiamigra] Fw: Farmers in U.S., Mexico, Central America May Have to Compete for Agricultural Labor Workforce, MPI Report Finds
- From: william mejia <wmejia8a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "colombiamigra@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <colombiamigra@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2013 08:33:56 -0800 (PST)
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Sent: Wednesday, February 6, 2013 11:23 AM
Subject: Farmers in U.S., Mexico, Central America May Have to Compete for
Agricultural Labor Workforce, MPI Report Finds
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Press Release
February 6, 2013
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Farmers in U.S., Mexico & Central America May Increasingly Have to Compete for
Shrinking Agricultural Labor Workforce amid Evolving Regional Dynamics, MPI
Report Finds
WASHINGTON — Agriculture is unlike most other key sectors of the North American
economy in that its comparative advantage has rested on having access to
abundant labor willing to do the work instead of on the accumulation of
education and formal credentials. Agricultural labor trends are evolving,
however, raising labor supply questions for the United States, Mexico and
Central America.
For example, Mexico, which is still the largest supplier of hired labor to U.S.
farms, is in the transitional phase of being both farm labor exporter and
importer, increasingly relying on workers from Guatemala as its own
agricultural workforce shrinks. And with the production of labor-intensive
crops expanding in Mexico and the Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras) as agricultural jobs become less attractive throughout the region,
there could be a growing tension between labor supply and demand.
In Ripe with Change: Evolving Farm Labor Markets in the United States, Mexico,
and Central America, economists Philip Martin and J. Edward Taylor of the
University of California, Davis examine the region’s farm labor market
dynamics. The report focuses on changes in the volume and composition of
production, the supermarket revolution in Latin America, as well as on trends
in training and education, and their implications for workers and migration.
(The Spanish-language report brief can be found here.)
While the share of the total workforce employed in agriculture is high in
Mexico and Central America relative to the United States, it is falling fast.
Across Mexico and Central America, educational attainment is increasing and
incomes are rising — though these advances and demographic trends are evolving
at different speeds in each country, the report finds. Mexico and El Salvador
are seeing their populations age and total population growth slowdown. In
contrast, birth rates remain high in Guatemala and Honduras.
“There is evidence that the supply of farm labor in the region is decreasing
and that, in the future, farmers throughout the region will find themselves
competing for a dwindling number of local farm workers,” Martin and Taylor
write.
Said Migration Policy Institute (MPI) President Demetrios G. Papademetriou:
“This has key implications not only for the United States, which relies
significantly on a foreign agricultural labor workforce, but also for the
region. Current labor and immigration policies may not ensure a continuous
supply of labor to U.S. farms, possibly causing farmers to have to look further
afield for workers, and/or pay higher wages and/or turn to labor-saving
mechanization in selected crops.”
The agriculture sector report is the latest research from the Regional
Migration Study Group, a partnership between MPI and the Latin American
Program/Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars. The Study Group, co-chaired by former Mexican President Ernesto
Zedillo, former US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez and former Guatemalan
Vice President Eduardo Stein, is a high-level initiative that in March will
propose new collaborative approaches to migration, competitiveness and
human-capital development for the United States, Central America and Mexico.
A primary goal of the Study Group is to develop and promote a longer-term
vision of how to build a stronger economic and social foundation by enhancing
the region’s human-capital infrastructure. Building up human capital should
foster better economic opportunities for the region’s citizens, creating an
engine for growth in each country and strengthening regional competitiveness.
“Over time, success in this regard will mitigate today’s concerns about the
scope and ‘quality’ of regional migration, and will also set the stage for
future regional migration to be more of a genuine choice, rather than a
necessity,” Papademetriou said.
MPI recently published a paper examining the region’s manufacturing sector, and
next week will publish a report on the region’s health care sector, followed by
one on the transportation and logistics sector. The research and more on the
Study Group’s mission and membership can be read at
www.migrationpolicy.org/regionalstudygroup.
###
The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit
think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people
worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and
refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on
MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.
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