The true cost of your food

Time to amend the New Mexico Workers Compensation Act

New Mexico's agricultural laborers are excluded by law from basic health protections, Kim Posich writes.

Few people realize that an important section of New Mexico’s economy thrives on the backs of people who live in stark poverty – workers who labor under harsh conditions in dangerous jobs but who, while being paid a pittance, are excluded from the most important health protections that other workers get by law.

Agricultural and ranching industries are an important part of our state’s economy. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the annual value of our state’s field crops is over half a billion dollars per year and our dairy cow business is the 7th most productive in the country. We are the 14th most productive state in growing cotton, fruits, berries and tree nuts. There are over 17,000 agricultural businesses in New Mexico, but over 13,000 of these are small, family operations, employing three workers or less. The other two thousand businesses employ about twenty thousand agricultural workers in the crop fields, dairy farms and ranches of New Mexico.

The majority of these agricultural workers are seasonal workers and are some of the poorest agricultural workers in the nation. For 25 weeks a season, they labor seven days a week, 10 to 14 hours per day, for an average of $7,000. What’s more, the work that they do is dangerous, hard on their bodies and performed under difficult conditions. In fact, according to the US Department of Labor, farm labor is the most dangerous occupation in the nation. For example, many workers suffer dehydration, repetitive stress injuries and farm equipment accidents and roughly 12% of all agricultural workers suffer acute injuries and illnesses from exposure to pesticides. The dangers and hard work take their toll. The life expectancy of a farm worker is only 50 years of age and many of those who live longer, are seriously disabled due to work-related injuries and illness.

Despite the important role that farm and ranch workers play in our state economy and the high incidence of illness and injury they experience while doing so, they have been intentionally excluded from protections offered to other workers under the New Mexico Workers’ Compensation Act. This means that if they are hurt on the job, they are not entitled to the health care, disability or rehabilitation benefits that help other workers get back on their feet after an occupational injury or illness, or that serve as a safety net if they become unable to work again.

Some responsible farmers and ranchers voluntarily provide workers’ compensation coverage for their employees. Some offer workers limited care under a liability policy if the injury was the employer’s fault. Most agricultural workers by far, however, are left to fend for themselves. Without insurance and too poor to pay for care on their own, these individuals work through their injuries when they are able to and when they are not, they lose their income and can incur unmanageable medical debt or permanent physical damage. Sometimes, they die.

These hard-working people labor on our farms and ranches with the hope of feeding themselves and their families and perhaps with the dream of improving their lives. No one else is willing to do the hard work they do, under the conditions they do, for as little pay as they do. In the bargain, they play a critical role producing New Mexico agricultural products. Yet New Mexico has refused to find a way to protect these workers from the dangers of the work we rely upon them to do. Until the New Mexico Workers’ Compensation Act is amended to provide equal protection to our farm and ranch workers, every New Mexican should give pause while enjoying our New Mexico green chile, onions, milk or cheese and consider the unnecessarily steep human cost of their meal.

Kim Posich is director of the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty. He can be contacted at kim@nmpovertylaw.org.

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