IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/uersrr/262245.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The U.S. Produce Industry and Labor: Facing the Future in a Global Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Calvin, Linda
  • Martin, Philip

Abstract

Fruit and vegetable production is a labor-intensive process, and over half of the hired workers employed by growers are believed to be unauthorized immigrants. Reforms to immigration laws, if they reduce the labor supply, may increase the cost of farm labor. The authors of this report assess how particular fruit and vegetable commodities might adjust if labor rates increased. Analysis of case studies suggests a range of possible adjustment scenarios, including increased mechanization for some crops, reduced U.S. output for a few crops, and increased use of labor aids to improve labor productivity for others.

Suggested Citation

  • Calvin, Linda & Martin, Philip, 2010. "The U.S. Produce Industry and Labor: Facing the Future in a Global Economy," Economic Research Report 262245, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:uersrr:262245
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.262245
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/262245/files/8069_err106.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/262245/files/8069_err106.pdf?subformat=pdfa
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.262245?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cook, Roberta L., 2001. "Emerging Trade Practices And Trends In The Fruit And Vegetable Markets," Agricultural Outlook Forum 2001 33077, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Outlook Forum.
    2. Calvin, Linda & Cook, Roberta L. & Denbaly, Mark & Dimitri, Carolyn & Glaser, Lewrene K. & Handy, Charles R. & Jekanowski, Mark D. & Kaufman, Phillip R. & Krissoff, Barry & Thompson, Gary D. & Thornsb, 2001. "U.S. Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Marketing: Emerging Trade Practices, Trends, and Issues," Agricultural Economic Reports 33915, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Cook, Roberta L. & Calvin, Linda, 2005. "Greenhouse Tomatoes Change the Dynamics of the North American Fresh Tomato Industry," Economic Research Report 7244, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Huffman, Wallace, 2007. "Demand for Farm Labor in the Coastal Fruit and Salad Bowl States Relative to Midland States: Four Decades of Experience," Staff General Research Papers Archive 12827, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    5. Schimmelpfennig, David E. & Heisey, Paul W., 2009. "U.S. Public Agricultural Research: Changes in Funding Sources and Shifts in Emphasis, 1980-2005," Economic Information Bulletin 58314, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Philip L. Martin, 2013. "Migration and US agricultural competitiveness," Migration Letters, Migration Letters, vol. 10(2), pages 159-179, May.
    2. Riccardo Lo Bianco & Primo Proietti & Luca Regni & Tiziano Caruso, 2021. "Planting Systems for Modern Olive Growing: Strengths and Weaknesses," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Amy M. G. Kandilov & Ivan T. Kandilov, 2020. "The minimum wage and seasonal employment: Evidence from the US agricultural sector," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 612-627, September.
    4. Li, Yi & Huang, Kuan-Ming & Guan, Zhengfei, 2024. "Mechanization and Farm Profit: Model and Application to Specialty Crops," 2024 Annual Meeting, July 28-30, New Orleans, LA 344053, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Escalante, Cesar L. & Cowart, Watson L. & Shonkwiler, Vanessa P., 2023. "Coping with Delayed H-2A Worker Arrivals during the Pandemic," Journal of the ASFMRA, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, vol. 2023, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Padilla Bernal Luz Evelia & Reyes Rivas Eliver & Pérez Veyna Oscar, 2012. "Evaluación de un cluster bajo agricultura protegida en México," Contaduría y Administración, Accounting and Management, vol. 57(3), pages 219-237, julio-sep.
    2. Volpe, Richard & Leibtag, Ephraim S. & Roeger, Edward, 2013. "How Transport Costs Affect Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Prices," Economic Research Report 161355, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Mamen Cuéllar-Padilla & Ernesto Ganuza-Fernandez, 2018. "We Don’t Want to Be Officially Certified! Reasons and Implications of the Participatory Guarantee Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-15, April.
    4. Best, Sarah. & Mamic, Ivanka., 2008. "Voluntary social initiatives in fresh fruit and vegetable value chains," ILO Working Papers 994312573402676, International Labour Organization.
    5. Xia, Tian & Sexton, Richard J., 2009. "Retail Prices for Milk by Fat Content: A New Theory and Empirical Test of Retailer Pricing Behavior," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 34(2), pages 1-20, August.
    6. V. R. Ghezavati & S. Hooshyar & R. Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, 2017. "A Benders’ decomposition algorithm for optimizing distribution of perishable products considering postharvest biological behavior in agri-food supply chain: a case study of tomato," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 25(1), pages 29-54, March.
    7. Love, Erin & Thilmany McFadden, Dawn D. & Jablonski, Becca B. R. & Bellows, Laura, 2020. "A Baseline Assessment of School Food Spending and Local Procurement: Exploring the Case of CO Hb 19-1132 and Other Public Policies," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304588, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Cervantes-Godoy, Dalila & Sparling, David & Avendano, Belem & Calvin, Linda, 2007. "North American Retailers and Their Impact on Food Chains," 2007 NAAMIC Workshop IV: Contemporary Drivers of Integration 163902, North American Agrifood Market Integration Consortium (NAAMIC).
    9. Paul N. Wilson & Gary D. Thompson, 2003. "Time Integration: Agribusiness Structure for Competitive Advantage," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 25(1), pages 30-43.
    10. Davis, Kathy J. & Thornsbury, Suzanne & Ward, Ronald W., 2002. "Consolidation In The Fresh Florida Grapefruit Packing Industry," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19815, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Sparling, David & van Duren, Erna, 2002. "Putting Globalization and Concentration in the Agri-food Sector into Context," CAFRI: Current Agriculture, Food and Resource Issues, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society, issue 3, pages 1-20, April.
    12. Ahumada, Omar & Villalobos, J. Rene, 2011. "Operational model for planning the harvest and distribution of perishable agricultural products," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(2), pages 677-687, October.
    13. Miljkovic Dragan & Gomez Miguel, 2013. "A Mechanism Design of Dispute Resolution Systems in a Regional-Free Trade Agreement," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 113-128, October.
    14. Epperson, J.E., 2010. "An Examination of the Market Structure of the U.S. Produce Industry," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 41(1), pages 1-6, March.
    15. Hatanaka, Maki & Bain, Carmen & Busch, Lawrence, 2005. "Third-party certification in the global agrifood system," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 354-369, June.
    16. Padilla-Bernal, Luz E. & Thilmany, Dawn D. & Loureiro, Maria L., 2003. "An Empirical Analysis of Market Integration and Efficiency for U.S. Fresh Tomato Markets," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 28(3), pages 1-16, December.
    17. Best, Sarah. & Mamic, Ivanka., 2008. "Global agri-food chains : employment and social issues in fresh fruit and vegetables," ILO Working Papers 994299953402676, International Labour Organization.
    18. Hoehn, John P. & Deaton, Brady J., Jr., 2003. "Information As A Double-Edged Sword: The Economic And Welfare Consequences Of Certified Labeling For Credence Attributes," Staff Paper Series 11762, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    19. Hoehn, John P. & Deaton, Brady J., Jr., 2004. "The Welfare Consequences Of Certified Labeling For Credence Attributes," Staff Paper Series 11758, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    20. repec:ilo:ilowps:429995 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Schaffner, David J., 2002. "United States Produce Markets In Transition- Today And Tomorrow," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 33(2), pages 1-6, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:uersrr:262245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ersgvus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.