Arranged by commodity, labor expenditures divide into three roughly
equal categories. One third is paid to workers in field crops such as
wheat, corn, and cotton. One third of labor expenses go to livestock
workers and one third of expenditures are paid to workers on fruit and
vegetable farms.
Hired farm work is also important to many workers. About 2.5 mil-
lion Americans rely on hired farm work for some or all of their in-
comes. In addition, an estimated 300 to 500 thousand foreign workers
are illegally employed in agriculture in the United States. Most of the
hired farm work force, about 85 percent, work only seasonally in ag-
riculture. Although migrant agricultural workers are the focus of most
of the publicity, official surveys show that only 8 percent of hired
agricultural workers are migrants. If illegal workers are included, the
proportion of workers who are migrants could be as high as 25 percent.
As Table 1 well illustrates, most of the decline in farm employment
has taken place in the category “family employment”. Indeed, of the
decline in annual average farm employment from 1910 to 1980 of
9,850,000 jobs, fully 79 percent were family jobs.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, hired agricultural employment
stopped declining in the 1970s. Average annual employment of hired
workers actually grew from 1,175,000 in 1970 to 1,303,000 in 1980
while the hired share of total farm employment grew from 26 percent
to 35 percent. Part of the explanation for this can be found in the shift
to larger farms which use a greater proportion of hired labor. In ad-
dition, the pace of mechanization slowed during the 1970s with in-
creases in energy prices and the wide availability of labor. Finally,
levels of production increased substantially, especially in some labor
intensive fruit and vegetable crops.
As a result, the present day reality is that
• hired agricultural employment is no longer declining, but
varies cyclically with the level of agricultural production
activity.
• the proportion of the agricultural work force which is hired
is increasing as farms continue to decline in numbers but
increase in size.
Reality #2: Changes in the Agricultural Labor Environment
In recent years, significant changes have been taking place in Amer-
ican agriculture and its environment which require change in tradi-
tional farm labor practices. First, there is the growing technical
sophistication of agriculture. A more mechanized, highly technical and
capitalized agriculture poses added requirements for skilled workers
and a productive, reliable work force. Only a well-trained worker, for
example, can operate or repair the expensive and delicate harvesting
equipment now commonly used in many commodities. Workers and
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