Latino Labor Key to Preserving Dairy Culture?

By Jane Fyksen, Crops Editor
Thursday, October 4, 2007 6:45 AM CDT

Joan Behr, Dr. M. Gatz Riddell, Jr. and Deb Reinhart

Immigration and the Wisconsin dairy industry’s increasing reliance on Latino labor are hot-button topics in rural communities in this state. That keen interest was evidenced at last week’s very well-attended Western Wisconsin Rural Immigration Summit in Arcadia, a community which has seen a larger-than-usual influx of Latinos. That summit, hosted by the UW-Extension, is the jumping off point for this new series on Latino labor in the dairy industry.

Paul Kaldjian, a UW-Eau Claire geographer who studies food systems and works part-time at the farmers’ market in Eau Claire, suggests that Wisconsin may be increasingly dependent upon Latino “newcomers” to maintain its dairy heritage. He advised rural Wisconsin to acknowledge the contributions of these newcomers, which are enabling many dairy farms n and Wisconsin as a whole n to maintain “the quality of life we seed” and the state’s self-image as America’s Dairyland.

While multinational firms have been able to relocate manufacturing overseas for lower-cost production (i.e. cheap and typically unskilled labor), farms are “tied to place” (i.e. good farmland and a long tradition of dairying on a certain farm or community). As young people “stream out of rural areas and occupations,” says Kaldjian, affordable and reliable labor has been harder to come by for dairies, especially those in the expansion mode.

Wisconsin is in competition with California’s dairy industry. Kaldjian compared the two, pointing out that in Wisconsin, there are four people for every cow; in California, there are 22. There are 300 people per dairy farm in Wisconsin; in California, there are 15,700. Wisconsin produces 4,300 pounds of milk per person in this state; California pumps out 950 pounds. Wisconsin produces 410 pounds of cheese per resident, California 44 pounds. A “dairy culture” is “part of who we are,” Kaldjian remarks.

However, quoted Kaldjian, “Americans don’t raise their children to be farmers.” The labor shortage facing Wisconsin dairy producers is quickly becoming more acute; Latinos could very well be the solution, he suggests. The alternative is “exporting the farm” and moving production, which has implications for both food safety and security and potential loss of middle-class support jobs.

While California, the rival of Wisconsin’s dairy industry, has long enjoyed closer proximity to plentiful Latino labor as part of its competitive advantage, Kaldjian says Wisconsin producers are just now really starting to tap into that same labor pool. Buffalo and Trempealeau counties have been forerunners, with Latinos increasingly hired to fill dairy farmers’ labor needs since the late 1990s. It hasn’t been without controversy, though.

This isn’t a matter of just importing cheese, Kaldjian stresses, but a potential loss of “Wisconsin culture and who we are.” Being “unwelcoming” to immigrants may be “self-defeating” for rural communities, as a growing number of places (rural and urban) compete for immigrants and “their contributions to local economic growth and entrepreneurialism.”

The issue of workers from Mexico on dairy farms goes far beyond an issue of “legal versus illegal,” he contends. Likewise, migration in Wisconsin is larger than just Latino newcomers, he notes. This state faces multiple “migration stories,” from rural to urban, people n and political clout - from the Midwest to the South and Southwest, retirees moving off the farms, to internationals coming to the state. Many rural areas are losing population; North Dakota has really been struggling with that issue, as is Florence County in northern Wisconsin, he points out. Trempealeau County, the location of last week’s summit, has also been losing young people graduating from high school.

Wisconsin’s migration problem isn’t the one many think of first. It’s out-migration. The heartland’s rural communities aren’t retaining young people due to low wages, limited career opportunities, unmet social expectations and lack of desired amenities. Funding for public services n including education - decline while at the same time, they’re required to serve people in increasingly wide service areas.

Neighboring Iowa has sought to deal with out-migration, in part, by establishing a formal initiative to attract “new” Iowans (foreign-born immigrants and refugees).

Kaldjian reports that Wisconsin is increasingly dependent upon migrants to prop up its population and economy. The state’s population grew slowly between 200 and 2005 n around 4.3 percent, compared to the national increase of 5.1 percent. Over a third of that growth was from in-migration, and of that, six out of seven were from outside the U.S. During that time, the Latino population of Wisconsin grew up 26 percent, bringing the portion of Latinos in this state to 3.5 to 4.5 percent of the total population.

Here are more statistics. In 2004, 11 percent of the U.S. population was foreign-born, versus 4 percent of the Dairy State’s. In 2003, Wisconsin has one foreign-born resident per 1,250 people, ranking it 36th among states. There was one per 412 in the U.S. as a whole, one per 200 Californians, one per 600 Minnesotans, and one per 860 Iowans.

He suspects Latinos are seen as a threat in some rural communities because of how homogeneous (i.e. overwhelmingly white) their residents are. According to Kaldjian, Wisconsin is, in fact, less diverse than the U.S. as a whole n over 85 percent white compared to a national average around 67 percent. In such a setting, any change in ethnic or cultural makeup is “magnified,” he notes.

Of an estimated 12 million undocumented migrants in the U.S., just over 100,000 n less than 1 percent n are thought to be here in the Dairy State. Wisconsin ranks 21st among states in its number of undocumented residents.

Kaldjian admits tallies are hard to come by. He shares estimates that while the U.S. has 12 million plus undocumented workers, 6 million of them may be Mexican. It’s estimated that as high as 80 to 85 percent of the Mexicans coming to the U.S. are undocumented in recent years. Anywhere from 30 to 39 percent of Wisconsin’s immigrants are thought to be undocumented.

It’s thought that a third of the Mexicans coming to the U.S. worked in agriculture before they left their country. However, only 11 percent have jobs in farming here. Thirty percent work in the construction and hospitality industries. In 2005, the median age for the Latino population was 27.2, versus 36.2 for the U.S. population as a whole.

Kaldjian reports two of the more common public concerns over the rising number of Latino newcomers to smaller rural communities. One is an impact on public services, i.e. schools and health care. The other is that they’ll displace local workers and depress wages. However, studies reveal that legal and undocumented migrants pay as much or more in taxes than they consume in tax-supported benefits. And illegals pay income taxes and pay into Social Security, money which is unclaimed, to shore up that system.

Kaldjian also contends that in rural areas, declining enrollments and state revenue caps are bigger problems facing school systems than the need for English-as-a-second-language teachers.

He compares public school enrollments by ethnic group. During the 1993-94 school year in Wisconsin, total enrollment was 841,730 K through 12. Of those students, 706,699 were white, 76,399 black, 20,130 Asian, 10,930 Native American and 24,572 Hispanic. In 2003-04, the year of the most recent data Kaldjian has, total enrollment was 881,017. Of that, 699,991 were white, 91,289 black, 26,492 Asian, 12,868 Native American and 47,377 Hispanic. While Wisconsin’s total public school students dropped 4.7 percent, and the white population went down 1.4 percent, the black students rose 19.5 percent and Native Americans 17.7 percent. The Asian school population grew 46.5 percent in those 10 years. The Hispanic population jumped 92.8 percent.

In 2003-04, 5.4 percent of public school students in this state were Hispanic.

It’s a common myth that unskilled migrants displace local workers and depress wages. According to Kaldjian, studies point to just the opposite. Newcomers serve as “spark plugs of economic growth and innovation,” often creating jobs where none existed. They even raise wages by attracting additional capital to their communities. They’re taking jobs many Americans no longer want to do n including, unfortunately, in dairy farming. They also tend to be more motivated to work longer hours, intent on sending money back to Mexico to support families left behind.

Kaldjian suggests new migrants are scapegoats for unwanted changes taking place in rural communities. He points out there a “difference between preventing change and directing it.”

Changes are coming, he predicts. Currently, 4.4 percent of the U.S. population is Asian, 13 percent black, 66.3 percent non-Hispanic white and 14.7 percent Hispanic. It’s projected that by 2043, this country’s population will be 7.4 percent Asian, 14.4 percent black, 23 percent Hispanic and 52.6 percent non-Hispanic white.

“Currently half of the total U.S. population increase is Latino,” making it the “largest and fastest growing ethnic minority in the U.S., says Kaldjian.

Kaldjian feels it’s important to differentiate between real problems and ones that are only perceived n and may not be fact. Latino newcomers may, in fact, be the answer to the continuation of Wisconsin’s dairy tradition and state identity formed in large part by the dairy industry.

He goes on to say that immigrant workers have a work ethic similar to the one associated with the immigrants that first established dairying in Wisconsin in the first place. High school kids want time off for sports and sleeping in; Latino employees on dairy farms want as many hours as they can get. Dairying looks good compared to other alternatives in agriculture, like working in the field picking fruits and vegetables or in meat packing.

According to Kaldjian, over 150 Latinos are likely working on 40 dairies in Buffalo and Trempealeau counties, where together, there were about 500 dairy farms in total in 2005. Farms hiring Latinos tend to be the largest farms, averaging almost 360 cows and 4 Latino employees apiece. Dairy farmers in western Wisconsin pay their employees between $275 and $500 for a 60-hour week, and provide housing and utilities. Latino workers also fill their own vacancies with fellow Latinos looking for work.

Kaldjian informed Summit participants that the immigration issue is very complicated, and that people and places are interconnected. Rural Wisconsin has ties to Mexico. He encourages Wisconsin’s dairy industry and rural communities to be open-minded and creative in adapting to and welcoming Latino labor and change in their midst.

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