It’s Not an Immigration Issue, but Rather a Labor Challenge That Faces Agriculture
The immigration debate, along with border policies, has been a continued conversation that has offered little to no solutions in Washington. Meanwhile, labor continues to be a No. 1 headache that farmers from coast to coast are challenged with.
According to Jackie Klippenstein, Senior Vice President of Chief Government and Industry Relations Officer with Dairy Farmers of America, the only way to possibly make meaningful change about this topic is to stop talking about it as an immigration issue.
Two Separate Issues
“I believe we need to separate the issue of immigration from farm labor because when we talk about immigration, it is very emotional for a lot of people and it means something different for everybody in dairy,” Klippenstein says. “In agriculture, we're looking at trying to find people that want to come work on our farms. It's a different story. It's about pieces. It's about making sure we've got folks on the operation who can deliver the nutrition that consumers want. It's not an immigration story. It’s a labor story.”
Wisconsin Farmer Provides a Variety of Employee Incentives
Indeed, farmers are getting creative on how to attract and retain employees. In Wisconsin, Vir-Clar Farm has worked hard at building a positive, family-like culture on their Fond du Lac dairy. This includes implementing a ride-share program that not only helps employees show up to work on time, but serves as an incentive that their employees have come to enjoy.
Vir-Clar Farm employs 38 full-time workers. Home to 2,400 mature cows that are milked three times daily in a double-30 parlor, each shift at Vir-Clar Farm takes 7.5 hours with clean-up. Although their employees work 12-hour shifts.
In addition to the ride-share program, Vir-Clar Farm also provides hot meals and celebrates employees’ birthdays to boost morale and retain employees.
“I think so far, my favorite has been providing English classes to our employees,” Katie Grinstead, owner of Vir-Clar Farm shares. “This is something brand new to the farm. We started offering English classes and seeing the teamwork, the excitement and the enthusiasm of the employees working together to try to learn English has been awesome.”
Two-Way Street
Katie Dotterer, better known as AgvoKate, grew up on her family’s dairy farm in central Pennsylvania and co-owned a dairy farm for 13 years. Dotterer founded AgvoKate in 2020 and now is self-employed, offering Spanish and ESL classes.
“The majority of Spanish-speaking employees do want to learn some English because they want to assimilate,” Dotterer says. “They want to keep parts of their own culture, but they also want to be able to communicate and they want to be able to be part of the communities that they suddenly find themselves in.”
Dotterer shares that it is hard for people who have never been to another country, especially a Spanish-speaking country, to grasp this.
“It is still a developing country, Latin America and any of the countries in Latin and South America,” she says. “While they are beautiful countries, they are not as developed as the U.S. And so, when Spanish speakers come here, they want to thrive. They don't want to just work. They're here to provide for their families.”
Dotterer underscores that building relationships is a two-way street. She concurs with Klippenstein that our issue is not immigration, but labor retention and we need to learn the language and the culture.
“As forward-thinking and as progressive as we are in the agricultural industry with our technology usage, sometimes I don't think we are as progressive with our mindset and with our attitudes and our way of thinking,” Dotterer says. “It’s time to start changing the mindset about ag labor.”
