PLAINVIEW, MINN. - Maurie and Rita Young are much like other operators of large dairy farms in Minnesota. They volunteer at the State Fair, their children belonged to Future Farmers of America -- and their cows are milked by Mexican workers.
The Plainview couple have even taken Spanish lessons and participated in a farmers' tour to Mexico. They never set out to be global citizens, but like farmers statewide, they couldn't find enough locals willing to work long hours in less-than-fragrant cow barns.
Dairy experts say that most of the state's large dairy farms have some Hispanic workers, part of a national trend.
"I used to be pretty much a one-man show," said Maurie Young, standing outside a large barn being cleaned by a young Mexican man.
"I was working 5 in the morning until 9 at night, seven days a week," Young said. "And at the end of the year, I had little to show for it. I figured there had to be a better way."
So the Youngs expanded their business. With four sons uninterested in farming, they turned to the workers they had seen at other farms. They now call it "the best thing we could have done."
Hispanics made up about 40 percent of all U.S. agricultural workers in 2005, according to the Census Bureau. They've long harvested fruit and vegetables and worked in canning and packing factories. But their move to northern dairy farms started in earnest about a decade ago and has grown ever since, said Bob Lefebvre, executive director of the Minnesota Milk Producers Association.
There is no firm tally on what's going on in Minnesota, but local farming experts say it's quietly become a way of life for this quintessential Minnesota industry. The state is the nation's sixth-largest milk producer.
"It started coming to the Midwest in the mid-1990s as herd sizes grew and families couldn't keep up with them," said Jim Dickrell of Monticello, Minn., editor of the national trade publication Dairy Today. "With these larger herds, say, 150 or more, Hispanic labor is now very common. It's almost ubiquitous."
Knock on the door
It was a knock at the front door that prompted the Youngs to hire some of their first Hispanics in the summer of 2001. Three young men in T-shirts and jeans were standing on their doorstep, offering to work.
The Youngs, who wanted to add another milking shift, didn't hesitate. The men had documentation needed to work, and the Youngs needed the workers. Said Rita Young: "We really needed the help. And we knew [Hispanics] were good workers and willing to learn."
Today, nearly all of the Youngs' 21 workers are Hispanic.
To improve communication with his new workers, Maurie Young took a Spanish class for local farmers in Plainview. There, he met Shaun Judge Duvall, a Spanish teacher from Alma, Wis., who has become the cultural bridge between farmers in southeastern Minnesota and Mexican workers.
To learn more about their employees as people, the Youngs also signed up for a trip to Mexico, organized by Judge Duvall. There they met the families of some Minnesota farm workers, in poor villages. The experience was humbling, the Youngs said.
The Youngs say their transition to foreign workers has been smooth, partly because they had participated in a foreign-exchange program earlier and because they found a terrific bilingual chief herdsman.
Likewise, that herdsman, a soft-spoken young man named Javier Martinez, can't say enough about his new work. "I grew up with animals, and I love working with cows," said Martinez, who does everything from caring for newborns to assisting the veterinarian to overseeing the labor on the farm. "And I love small towns. Here, we can wake up and see the sun."
Here, Mexicans also can earn a salary that relatives back home could only dream of. The milkers earn more than $25,000 a year, said Maurie Young. And Martinez earns considerably more. Some live in mobile homes that the Youngs have bought for them near Plainview. Others live in apartments nearby.
The pioneer
In the farm-dotted countryside of southeastern Minnesota where the Youngs live, the seeds for hiring Hispanic workers were planted by John Rosenow, a Wisconsin farmer about 30 miles east of Wabasha.
Rosenow said he and his wife had been working on their farm about 90 hours a week for 10 years, when they decided they couldn't stay on the treadmill. He somewhat reluctantly checked into hiring Mexican workers in the mid-1990s.
"It's not natural for [farmers] to hire someone from another country, another culture, another language," he recalled. "There's been nothing but Swiss and German people here for 150 years.... But then you realize it's the best thing you can do."
Rosenow's workers were so reliable that other farmers took notice, he said. The otherwise low-key Wisconsin farmer found himself becoming an unpaid employment agent, helping about 100 farmers find Hispanic labor over the past decade. He relied on the contacts of his top Mexican employees.
'Incredible networking'
"I'd get calls from farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Iowa, saying they couldn't find workers," Rosenow recalled. "I'd explain [to his worker] what we needed, and typically he could find someone by the next day. The networking was incredible."
As Hispanic labor became more mainstream, Rosenow said, he no longer fields so many calls. Nonetheless, he continues to be a resource for farmers considering the move.
"Shaun [Judge Duvall] and I are the resource for a lot of people in this part of the country," he said. In fact, Rosenow and Judge Duvall were vital in creating Puentes/Bridges, an organization designed to smooth over cultural misunderstandings between the newest farm workers and the long-timers. The organization, based in Alma, is bringing another batch of farmers to Mexico in November and helping sponsor a community forum in nearby Arcadia, Wis., this month. It also continues to help farmers find their way through the new world of foreign workers.
"How life changes," marveled Rosenow.Star Tribune
