[engine humming, vehicle rattling]
♪♪
-Come on. You finish everything up.
♪♪
Before we begin, we need to stretch our ankles.
♪♪
-People that live in the United States
and are legal to work, they are not gonna do farmwork.
♪♪
-Without the H-2A program, we couldn't function.
This farm would not exist.
A majority of farms across the United States
would not exist.
♪♪
-You're willing to endure everything
to earn a better salary.
It's disposable manual labor because,
"I'll hire you today, but who knows tomorrow."
♪♪
-Our workers are our number-one assets.
It's our duty to keep them as safe as possible,
and that's our number-one priority.
[siren wailing]
-I hope it's worth everything I'm doing to get ahead.
♪♪
-[speaking Spanish]
[birds chirping]
-About seven to eight years ago,
this phenomenon began to arrive here.
It was the first time we heard of the H-2A visas
for farmworkers who were going to be hired
temporarily to work in the United States.
From there, they [recruiters] began to take
small groups of 30 or 40 workers,
and the figure kept growing every year.
-[speaking Spanish]
-An hour of work pays around 23 to 24 pesos [around $1] here.
If you go to the U.S., there's an abysmal difference
because you can get paid up to $11, $12 or $13
per hour worked.
♪♪
-H-2A is the only legal mechanism we have
to bring legal workers from Mexico
or anywhere in the world, for that matter.
♪♪
Right now, approximately 30%
of the workforce in the United States
that harvests the fresh fruits and vegetables
that Americans get to enjoy every day
are harvested by H-2A workers.
♪♪
-We've had traditionally a labor shortage in agriculture
because as a society, we have chosen not to invest
in agriculture, to improve working conditions,
to make pay competitive with any other industry.
We have turned to immigration as a solution.
-Before I can bring a worker legally on an H-2A visa
to the United States, that takes me 90 days.
We have to deal with many United States government agencies,
and it's a very long process.
We identify the need, what our customers need,
and we figure out how many we need.
And that's where the recruiting down here in Mexico
is so important, is that we have our own recruiting teams,
including we recruit from our own farms
the workers that we bring to the United States.
[vehicles passing]
-[I'm going] for the duration of the contract, that's it.
For the duration of the contract, and I'll come back.
-So that I can provide for my family
and give them a better life.
-They asked us for our passports, IDs.
Our birth certificates. They asked us for many things.
We were asked in what we had worked on,
what was our experience in the fields
so then we can travel over here.
It's hard work.
[birds chirping]
-People in the United States are gonna probably invent
a coronavirus vaccine.
They're gonna make respirators.
But they're not gonna come out and pick lettuce
and work out here in the dirt and the dust and the rain
and the heat and the cold like farmworkers do every day.
[dog barking]
[indistinct conversations]
-For these visas to work, we literally have to offer
those jobs to Americans first.
We advertise. We publish them in newspapers.
And we literally have very minimal response.
And anyone who shows up, we automatically have to hire them,
and we have to work them, and we're happy to.
But, I mean, for everyone that shows up,
we'll have like -- We'll advertise 15 jobs,
and we'll have three or four people show up.
And then within a week they'll quit,
and then we have nothing.
And then we apply for H-2A visas,
and that's when everyone comes from overseas to work for us,
and that's literally the lifeblood of this farm
and multiple farms across the United States.
'Cause literally, without this program,
Americans don't eat.
[indistinct conversations]
-We're a small farm. We just have 11 H-2A workers.
We're growing little by little, little by little.
We're going to take baby steps first.
I was told that first I was going to crawl,
then walk, and then run.
[fan humming]
♪♪
[woman singing in Spanish]
♪♪
[birds chirping]
-Everyone is family, and they all come with work visas.
[My hope is that] some of the workers can follow our steps.
Because we're giving them the same opportunities
I was granted.
♪♪
-Most of us are brothers, cousins, brothers-in-law.
But that does not matter because you come here to work.
Relationships don't exist here
because you're just doing your job.
That's what matters.
Just because he's my first cousin [Juan Carlos],
I'm not going to do this or that.
You come to work, and that's what you do.
♪♪
-Does anyone here have a headache? Sore throat?
Everyone is in excellent condition?
-Yes. -Okay, good.
You know, if you have any symptoms,
you need to let us know.
[indistinct conversations]
-Currently we have 47 H-2A workers here at Talley Farms,
and eventually we'll get up to around 80 --
80 H-2A workers in the peak of our season.
During the COVID-19, we have been established
that as farmers we are essential.
So therefore, our workers need to go to work on a daily basis.
[up-tempo music playing]
We're not allowing any visitors
to come and visit the H-2A workers,
nor do we allow the H-2A workers to leave our facility
to go and visit friends and family members.
It seems very restrictive,
but it's in their own good to really keep them safe.
♪♪
In my mind, growing our own food in our own soils here in America
is a national-security issue.
The importance of not relying on other countries
for our food source, it's tremendous.
And it's important that we are able to grow
here in our own country
so that we can provide food and nutrients
for our own people.
♪♪
-I'm grateful to be working,
but we also have to follow all the rules so that this can work.
♪♪
-It feels good to contribute to California's food security.
It's a good thing, something nice.
♪♪
-So imagine if you could go to Canada and earn eight times more
what you're earning right now in the United States.
I would posit you would do pretty much anything you could
to get up there regardless to do right by your family.
So what happens in these sending communities
and rural communities across Mexico, around the world,
these recruiters come in
knowing that what they are offering is gold.
And they don't give them up for free.
♪♪
-The issue of recruiting
is really something that's very near to my heart.
We want to recruit fairly, honestly, and legally,
and there is a lot of fraud that goes on in the recruiting
when you don't do it in-house yourself like we do.
There's a lot of opportunity for fraud.
And what they do -- some of them, not all of them.
There's some good recruiters out there.
But there's also a lot that take advantage of the farmworker.
To me, there's a special place in hell
for that person that would do that
to somebody who is basically the poorest of the poor in Mexico.
[vehicle approaching]
-The aspiration of every Mexican [farmworker]
is to say, "The U.S. dollar is worth a bit more."
To work in the U.S. and bring them back here.
[The difference] is a bit more.
That has always been the aspiration
of every Mexican [farmworker].
To cross to the U.S. for the exchange rate in Mexico.
Through the H-2A visa,
many leave and without having to cross the border illegally.
But they go with the same aspirations that the dollar
is worth more if they bring it over to this side.
That has not changed at all.
The only difference is that now we have recruitment centers
for those wanting to work in the U.S.
in different agricultural fields.
Because they're not going to work in an office,
hotel, or restaurant.
They go work the fields of the U.S.
-They go up into that gondola, we call it.
And then when they get to the packing house,
they're washed out with water.
With the non-movement, we've left a lot of acreage
in the field that we couldn't pick.
These guys have had a lot of days off
that they shouldn't have had, and it's been tough.
We've been trying to find stuff for them to do
between myself and the contractor.
But with no money coming in,
it's tough to keep them as busy as we would like to.
We're keeping them going the best we can,
and they're gonna end up making some money here at the end.
But hopefully we're gonna end up here on a good note
and keep them busy from here till the 1st of June,
when they all go back to Mexico.
I think farmers and farmworkers have been taken for granted
for years and years 'cause Americans will not --
no matter what anybody says,
Americans will not pick pickles in this heat,
bent over all day long.
It's a tough job, and these guys do a great job.
We've heard people say, doing our maze and stuff,
"Well, what do we need farms for?
Publix has got plenty of food in their grocery store."
You know, they just -- they can't make the connection.
So with any luck, this will leave a mark
on people and their minds,
and they'll realize and understand
how important farmers are, farmworkers are,
and what it takes and what's involved
in producing a crop that feeds them day in and day out.
♪♪