Jamerson Farms (JF) is a farm in SW Florida growing primarily cucumbers and green peppers. They also grow yellow squash, zucchini squash and eggplant. In the United States, the Top Three edible plant crops are potatoes, tomatoes, and onions. In Florida, the top three crops are tomatoes, oranges, and bell peppers
The history and stats of American farms are interesting. In the United States, the income generated by farms determines their size. A small farm qualifies if its income is less than $350,000/year. Nine out of ten farms are small, making up 52% of farms but only 26% of production.
Interestingly, Large Scale farms represent 2.5% of American farms and the majority of production. After peaking with almost 7 million farms in 1935, there are presently about a little more than two million farms in the US. The number of Farm Workers follows this. In 1950, the total amount of US farm workers was 10 million falling 70% to three million at the turn of the 21st century.
JF is actually one of the largest farms on the West Coast of Florida. They produce 1,200,000 bushels of produce filling 1200 semi trucks yearly while operational. Jamerson Farms was started by Mike Jamerson 20 years ago, with his wife, Kim. JF has about 700 acres in both Lehigh Acres and Labelle and about 200 in Felda.
The produce is then sent to a food broker in Immokalee for distribution. Food brokers are the “middle men” that negotiate prices for the food producer and build relationships with buyers. The farmer generally does not know who the end buyer of their produce is.
Mike shared a couple of farming techniques employed at JF. One was that they laser-leveled their growing areas each year. This is to optimize the likelihood that all plants received the same amounts of water. In the days before this, depending on rainfall, some plants in a bed would get too much water, and some too little.
I also noticed long sheets of black plastic underneath the rows of plantings. The plastic is there for a number of reasons. It holds moisture and fertilizer in the growing beds. It also gives the farmer a bit of a safety margin in cold weather in terms of crop temperature retention. Shown here are the onions in between the rows of eggplant. The onions seem to provide a natural insect repellent to the bugs problematic to eggplant.
The really interesting part of this story was the H-2A visa workers employed at JF. Besides harvesting, they were very active in the packing plant at the farm. They sort the vegetables and fill the packing plant boxes for transport to the food brokers.
The H-2A visa program was really started in 1917 to address the labor shortage in the US during World War One. Called the Bracero program, (bracero meaning working with one’s arms as a manual laborer) it was discontinued in 1964 due to the mistreatment of seasonal workers. It was brought back in 1987 under the H-2A and H-2B visa program, designating agricultural and non-agricultural workers, respectively.
The use of these visa programs in the US is widespread, and I am convinced our agricultural system in this country would collapse without them. It is something I was not aware of until this farm tour. Here is a bit of a primer on the visa program. For those needing more information on the process, this is an informative Link.
Farmers must be certified by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to participate in the H-2A visa program. To do this they first must submit their labor needs and job positions to state workforce agencies. This helps ensure that U.S. citizens are not displaced by foreign workers. If not enough jobs are filled before being needed, DOL can certify a farming operation. U.S. Customs and Immigration (USCIS) must also approve certification after DOL and state workforce agencies do.
The pay for H-2A workers is based on regional labor cost surveys and takes into account area bonuses, incentives and hazard pay. It is always greater than the prevailing area minimum wage, which is $11.00/hr in Florida in 2022. This is much greater than the average daily wage in Mexico. In 2019, the minimum wage for farm workers in Mexico was $4.64/day or $1200/year.
The average annual wage for the H-2A farm worker in 2019 was $25,000. This is a good incentive for people to cross the border legally, where they can earn almost 20 times what they could in Mexico. H-2A workers pay income tax, but are Exempt, and rightly so, from social security and Medicare withholding.
Their employers are responsible for providing them transportation to and from their home country, living arrangements while working and three daily meals. All of this is monitored by local, state and federal governments.
Many farmers, as the Jamerson’s do, employ H-2A labor services to handle recruitment, regulatory requirements, transportation and room and board for their workers. The labor rate paid by them included a 25% surcharge paid to H-2A visa services. I never realized this, but considering there were 258,000 H-2A visas issued in 2021, this is a huge business.
Besides all this visa stuff, there were some interesting things at their packing plant. One of these was a Cucumber Grading Machine. As the cucumber moves from left to right, there is an increasing distance between the rollers which separate the cucumbers by size. Cucumbers that are not fit for sale at a consumer level due to shape or other factors are sold to restaurant chains to be chopped up for salad bars.
At the end of our tour, the Jamerians gave us freshly picked eggplant and green peppers. I don’t know how long the interval is from commercial farm to grocery store but it must be substantial. Using this product to make stuffed green peppers and eggplant parmesan, you could really taste the difference from what is available at your local grocery store.
This was really a fun day out learning about modern farming methods, H-2A visa workers, packing house procedures and sampling the end product.
It’s a wrap for another post on Forks.
Jamerson Farms
12500 Green Meadows Rd.
Fort Myers, FL 33813
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