Essential or Expendable? Farmworkers Condemn Lack of Protection and Economic Help during Pandemic

As the coronavirus sweeps through the United States, the country’s 2.5 million farmworkers are continuing to go to work every day, often facing crowded and unsanitary conditions without personal protective equipment, for poverty wages. We speak with Gerardo Reyes Chávez, a farmworker leader with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, who describes the conditions farmworkers in Florida are facing and how they are calling on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to protect farmworkers during the COVID-19 crisis, and with Mónica Ramírez, president and founder of Justice for Migrant Women and co-founder of the National Farmworkers Women’s Alliance.
https://youtu.be/1BfgFUXsoiQ

“Without These Workers, Everything Ceases to Exist”: How Coronavirus Is Coming for Your Produce – Mother Jones

US consulates in Mexico are closed indefinitely, stranding a labor source that American farms rely on. ....
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/mexico-farms-h2a-visas-produce-coronavirus-us/

‘Be very careful’: the dangers for Mexicans working legally on US farms

For Mexican farmworkers, seasonal employment in the US is an opportunity to earn more – but those who make the journey can be easily exploited by recruiters...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/16/us-mexico-immigration-seasonal-work-visas-h-2a

Desperate farms turn to robot workers - The Washington Post

Agricultural workers of the future may soon be made of tech and steel. Can a robot pick a strawberry better, faster, and cheaper than a seasonal farmworker? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/02/17/feature/inside-the-race-to-replace-farmworkers-with-robots/

The GOP Wants To Bring in More Migrant Guest Workers—But For Much Lower Pay -- Mother Jones

Republicans say their new program will solve labor shortages. Migrant groups say it’s a “recipe for worker exploitation.”....
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/11/the-gop-wants-to-bring-in-more-migrant-guest-workers-but-for-much-lower-pay/