Immigrants play a powerful economic role in the United States, including providing a great agricultural skills base, a flexible market, food production, and excellent innovation diversity. In the US, sustainable agriculture is the most crucial aspect to be considered because of the underlying health crisis that has affected millions of Americans, rural economic challenges, and environmental concerns. Most food processing industries that used to make surplus food for citizens shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, while many workers died, and others were under severe conditions. The pandemic affected the transport industry, healthcare, and agricultural sector, undermining the US economy. Due to the reduced labor force, industries could not produce the exact amount of food products compared to before the pandemic. Sustainable agriculture includes increasing the agricultural workforce, knowledge-intensive skill base, and improving innovations. Given its importance, the employment of immigrants in the agriculture and food processing sector is a welcoming profession and critical for US sustainability.
Immigrants’ labor is vital for America’s growing population because it helps agricultural and food processing industries to produce enough food for citizens. Most immigrants perform agricultural jobs in the US, growing crops, harvesting, transporting, processing, and selling food products to people. Agricultural employers are continuously looking for workers to provide labor in their industries and perform other tasks, such as transporting the harvested goods to warehouses, packing, and storing them in good conditions. The produced goods can also be exported to other countries that need them in exchange for other services essential for the US economy (Richards, 2018). During the coronavirus pandemic, most people were indoors and getting food was difficult, and the immigrants played an influential role in the transportation and delivering food products door to door. Most people in the grocery and farm product wholesales are immigrants and account for the largest agricultural and food processing workers in the United States.
Immigrants have provided essential skills and knowledge for the agriculture sector in the United States. Immigrants come with different farming methods, including crop diversity practices and multi-year crop rotation that protects and makes the soil solid and healthy. These methods can protect crops from soil erosion and other harmful practices, including herbicides, adversely affecting soil organisms or natural organic matter input into the soil (Richards, 2018). These methods have enhanced crop productivity in the United States and reduced the utilization of pesticides, fertilizers, and water use. The employment of various farming methods has lowered food costs, ensuring Americans have access to food products without any challenges. Effective farming methods provide a sustainable agricultural practice and minimize animal per-farm pollution, preserving the earth’s natural resources, including air quality, soil, and water. Greenhouse gases, including carbon monoxide and methane, are significant causes of global warming, and immigrants have come up with various strategies to reduce environmental problems critical for the future of the US agricultural industry. Therefore, their skills and knowledge in farming methods have increased food production while eliminating hazardous ecological effects.
Agricultural and food processing industries require a skilled workforce to function effectively, and most of these people are immigrants who come to the United States in search of job opportunities. Operating machines require problem-solving skills, attention to detail, decision-making skills, and a person who can follow instructions as per the requirements. Various immigrants can function in different food processing sectors, and they have filled these gaps. These people have provided optimizing efficiency, performed quality checks, and operated industrial machines effectively, ensuring high productivity, which provides surplus for the Americans. Immigrants play a vital role in ensuring high food production is rewarded and handsomely paid. With the continued population growth in the United States, the country needs skilled human resources in the food processing industry to feed the Americans, giving the immigrants a vital role in the US agricultural and food processing industry.
Immigrant agricultural workers reside in rural areas where most local people have left cities for a better life and to boost the population, creating a future labor pipeline for the agricultural and food processing industry. Children get involved in the labor market and continue providing the essential workforce for the farming and food processing industry. The increase in the immigrant population increases the labor needed to produce surplus food for Americans (Richards, 2018). Additionally, the jobs taken by immigrants give the native Americans an opportunity to carry out other essential tasks, including producing high agricultural technologies for adequate food production. Immigrants are critical to the US economy and ensure Americans have access to enough food, the best agricultural methods, and good health.
In conclusion, the value of immigrants’ employment is vital in agricultural and food processing in the United States, which has ensured surplus food production for Americans. In the US, immigrants have married and had children critical for future labor and food production. Immigrants have provided essential skills and knowledge needed in operating machinery and different pollution-free farming methods. Therefore, immigrants have played a powerful role in the agriculture and food processing industry in the United States and greatly value the country’s economy.
Reference
Richards, T. (2018). Immigration reform and farm labor markets.American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 100(4), 1050-1071. Web.