Farmworkers in the United States have unique demographics, wages, working conditions, organizing, and environmental aspects. According to The National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health in Agricultural Safety, approximately 2,112,626 full-time workers were employed in production agriculture in the US in 2019 and approximately 1.4 to 2.1 million hired crop workers are employed annually on crop farms in the US. A study by the USDA found the average age of a farmworker to be 33. In 2017, the Department of Labor and Statistics found the median wage to be $23,730 a year, or $11.42 per hour.
The types of farmworkers include field crop workers, nursery workers, greenhouse workers, supervisors, etc. The United States Department of Labor findings for the years 2019-2020 report that 63 percent of crop workers were born in Mexico, 30 percent in the United States or Puerto Rico, 5 percent in Central America, and 2 percent in other regions. The amount of farm labor in the United States has changed substantially: in 1870, almost 50 percent of the U.S. population was employed in agriculture; , less than 2 percent of the population is directly employed in agriculture.
Potential health and safety issues that may be associated with farm work include vehicle rollovers, falls, musculoskeletal injuries, hazardous equipment, grain bins, pesticides, unsanitary conditions, and respiratory disease. According to the United States Department Of Labor, farmworkers are at risk of work-related lung diseases, noise-induced hearing loss, skin diseases, and certain cancers related to chemical use. Farm workers also suffer disproportionately from heat stress, with fewer than average seeking treatment. While some progress has been made, many farm workers continue to struggle for fair pay, proper training, and safe working conditions.
Farm structure
The development of a particular kind of agriculture is dependent on the characteristics of the farming region. The soil type, climate, slope, and distance to markets all help in shaping the type of agriculture that thrives in any particular region. For instance, the Midwestern United States has rich, fertile soil, and so it produces corn, soybeans, cattle, hogs, and dairy products and has become known as the Corn Belt of America. In contrast, agriculture in California’s Mediterranean and moderate climate produces more than half of the nation's fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which require hand-harvesting and a large labor force.
Over the last century the amount of farmland in production has remained relatively steady, but the number of operating farms has continually dropped, signifying a consolidation of farm enterprises. Around the 1930s hard economic times hit the country with the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl era, forcing some farmers off the land. From 1950 to 2001 the amount of U.S. farm land used for major commodity crop production has remained about the same while over half of the farms are gone. A farm's reliance on farmworkers greatly depends on the quantity and the type of crop in production. Some crops require more labor than others, and in California, many labor-intensive crops are produced such as dairy products, fruits, tree nuts and vegetables. Although the domestic farm labor force has decreased in the last century, the proportion of hired workers has grown. Increased competition among agricultural producers and consolidation have created a need for a large, inexpensive, and temporary workforce that increasingly comes from abroad.
Demographics
According to the National Center for Farmworker Health in 2012, there were an estimated 3 million migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the United States. Migrant farmworkers are considered to be temporary workers who move to an area for work, cultivating a crop during the harvest season. Seasonal farm workers, however, live in an area from year to year. The states with the highest percentage of both migrant and seasonal farm workers include; California, Florida, Oregon, North Carolina, and Washington. The Agricultural Resource Management Survey conducted by the USDA found that one third of the farm worker population is between the ages of 35–54 years old with an average age of 33.