This is part one of a three-part series by Carthage Veterinary Services, LLC. In this series of three articles, we hope to shed insight into how Rural America can embrace the evolution of their small-town communities through the changing labor pool.
The Great Resignation continues to bring challenges and create gaps in the labor pool nationwide, but there is a silver lining to some who have been facing these challenges long before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Recruiting international talent is nothing new to the agriculture industry. We have been recruiting from outside of the U.S. prior to 2020, largely due to the shrinking labor pool in most rural communities where our farms are located. In 2019, 44% of agriculture-related occupations were filled by an employee with Mexican origin background. Those numbers have likely increased, as evidenced by the increasing recruitment of international talent within the production systems we service. This impact is greater than just our farms, our international employees and their families integrate into our local communities and schools. By 2025, it is estimated that 1 out of 4 children will be English Language Learners (ELL) in U.S. classrooms.
The Labor Landscape
A little background for anyone outside of agriculture to understand the labor landscape: family farmworkers have continued to see steady reduction year over year since 1950, and while hired farmworkers also have seen a reduction, the percentage of the overall farm labor pool composed of hired workers has increased over time. Based on the most recent U.S. census data, while hired farmworkers make up less than 1% of all U.S. employees, farms are relying more and more on non-family labor sources.
For communities who choose to embrace them, the increased presence of international employees, combined with the open availability of agricultural jobs, has led to what some would call an unexpected revitalization of “Rural America.” These new community members bring with them new languages and cultures, all of which benefit our community.
There are certainly challenges as new employees come into a community that does not speak their native language. When they shop at grocery stores, they quickly find out the local store may not carry all the food ingredients they are used to cooking with. From education to housing to new friendships, we have seen success when those challenges have been openly identified, and the community has come together to make a positive improvement for all involved.
The topic is near and dear to our hearts. As pig farmers, we know we are one of the largest employers in our area, and we often represent the largest international workforce in our area. We have seen firsthand the positive impacts on our community, thanks in part to living in Carthage, Ill., a town that has embraced international employees looking to move into our tight-knit community and be a part of a better community tomorrow than what we have today.
And while it is important to see our new employees succeed in their work life, we also need to see their home life thrive to create sustainable long-term employees. This includes the international employee’s entire families’ integration, with a key component of that being their children succeeding in the classroom. Education of the children is critical to ensure we are setting up the next generation of our rural communities for success.
Education: An Example of Success in Carthage
With the influx of non-native English speakers, ELL students continue to increase in our rural school districts. Nearly 42% of international workers in the U.S. speak Spanish at home, thus integrating the children into English-based learning at school can be a challenging task.
In Carthage specifically, we owe a great deal of thanks and appreciation to the local school administration and staff for their outside-the-box thinking and approach to ensure no child is left behind. They have recognized the importance of these students as well as the importance of their success and worked to create solutions to the challenges that come with learning English while actively attending school.
Beginning in 2021, Carthage Middle School hired a retired Spanish teacher as an aide to work with ELL students, along with purchasing additional learning resources specifically for those students. With the supplemental reading, vocabulary and grammar lessons, they are looking to improve the children’s confidence, with the end goal of working towards full fluency in English. The challenging work of both the teacher’s aide and the students has not gone unnoticed by other teachers within the district. Many positive changes and improvements among the students were noted by teachers, all of whom requested for the program to continue throughout the year.
Electronics continue to be interwoven into school learning environments. It is no different with ELL students, and luckily there are devices to help with that. The Carthage Primary School was able to purchase PockeTalk devices for each ELL student at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year. These devices help translate from Spanish to English and vice versa and have been a great asset to both the students and teachers.
“They’ve enjoyed using them to communicate with their teachers and peers. It has been fascinating to watch as they become less dependent on the devices and have success using their own voice as their English language knowledge increases,” noted Ryanne Jacoby, principal at Carthage Primary School. “We’re very thankful for our little village of people who help our ELL students, along with the administration and board that sees the value and importance of spending district money to support these students.”
In addition, the district has implemented additional support staff who are bilingual in English and Spanish who come in a few days a week to volunteer and work with the ELL students and teachers. They have also begun working alongside ELL recruiters who work directly with the federally funded Migrant Education Program – contacting new families in the county to help them enroll their children in schools and provide them with additional services to help them integrate easier, including translation and transportation, among other services.
ELL students face unique challenges on top of the daily education struggles of all children. Communities that can recognize and look for solutions to help these children, and their families, integrate into rural communities will continue to see success and growth, in an otherwise exodus of small towns across the U.S.
In future articles in this series, we will continue to uncover the positive impacts our international employees are bringing to our tight-knit towns in search of their “American Dream.” After all, their dream is tightly intertwined with ours. The future of agriculture depends on international labor as they play an essential role in keeping our family farm operations across the country not only alive but thriving.
Read More:
Food Prices Will Rise if Labor Shortage Isn’t Addressed
Proof That People Make All the Difference on Successful Pig Farms
The Great Resignation: Don’t Let it Distract You from What Matters Most
Five Facts About the Ag Labor Shortage
