Migrant workers picking cabbages in Ohio, 2010. Credit: Flickr/Bob Jagendorf. CC BY-NC 2.0.
Wearing a flannel shirt, Wrangler jeans and worn-in beige boots, Juan Antonio Zuniga has the look of a farmer but not the entitlements that come with owning an actual farm. Fleeing violence in El Salvador, Zuniga came to the US in 1991 and has been a farmworker in New York ever since. Today, he lives and works on a farm in Mattituck, Long Island, where he picks grains and grows vegetables. According to the National Farmworker Ministry, the annual average income of crop workers is between $10,000 and $12,499 for individuals and $15,000 to $17,499 for a family, an offensively noticeable difference from the $5 billion-plus that New York’s agricultural industry brought in last year.
