Helping Your Key Hispanic Employee Make the Transition Into Supervision
“My name is Juan. I came here just to work. I came with very little. I just wanted a job. I started at the very bottom…Now I am supervisor of the farm.”
These words are no longer a rarity to hear on farm these days. Now in the United States, 70% of agricultural workers are foreign born. 63% of those workers are from Mexico (NCFH, 2022). Farms have begun to promote within and now 30% of all supervisors and managers are Hispanic (Isaacs, 2023). What will farms look like in the next 10-20 years? There is a predication that by the year 2050, the Latino population will be at 30% of the overall population in the United States (Gardner & Martinez, 2011). How will this impact the farms in America? The average farm owner is above 57 years old (Buys, Green, Robertson, 2023). This would not be that big of an issue if the next generation would want to follow in their parent’s footsteps. Unfortunately, many farm owner’s children are not interested in caring on the legacy. What will the ownership of farms look like in the next decade? Is it possible that within the farm’s workforce lies the answer? Here is an intriguing thought: is there a 20-year-old currently on your farm that could possibly be the next manager of your farm? Take it a step further: is there a manager currently on your farm that could possibly be the next owner or partner of your farm? If so, how can you give them what they need today to be in that position of leadership tomorrow?
Help your key Hispanic employee make the mental transition into supervision. Our Spanish course, ASL-101 SP: “Transición a supervisor” closes in one week on January 18. Slots fill quickly: https://agworkforce.cals.cornell.edu/liderazgo-en-supervision-agricola/
Written by: Mary “Bess” Lewis, Bilingual Management Development Specialist for Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development
References:
David Buys, John Green, Mary Nelson Robertson. “America’s farmers are getting older, and young people aren’t rushing to join them.” New Hampshire Bulletin 13 October 2023. https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2023/10/13/americas-farmers-are-getting-older-and-young-people-arent-rushing-to-join-them/#:~:text=October%2013%2C%202023%204%3A55%20am&text=The%20average%20American%20farmer%20is,just%20a%20smidge%20over%2050.
Rubén Martinez and Robert W. Garner “Latino Farmers on the Rise.” NEXO (2011): 8. https://jsri.msu.edu/upload/articles/Latino%20Farmers.pdf.
National Center for Farmworker Health. Facts About Agricultural Workers. Buda, Texas: National Center for Farmworker Health, 2022. https://www.ncfh.org/facts-about-agricultural-workers-fact-sheet.html.
Isaacs, Steve. “Hired Farm Labor and the Role of Hispanic Workers.” Economic and Policy Update (2020): 4. https://agecon.ca.uky.edu/files/hired_farm_labor_and_the_role_of_hispanic_workers.pdf. 12 December 2023.
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By Mary Lewis, Cornell University. Permission granted to repost, quote, and reprint with author attribution.
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