National Farm Workers Day 2022: Significance, Ways To Observe

Farm workers play a pivotal role in farming and work hard even under tough circumstances. National Farm Workers Day is commemorated to honor the unsung heroes whose hard work help put good food on our tables.

Farm workers are the ones who do the difficult jobs on farms, from trimming the hedges to picking the crops and plowing the fields.

Often, they work hard for very long hours under rough conditions such as the blazing heat of the sun, rains, etc. However, they are employed on low wages and are often not paid for overtime work.

While there have been improvements to the work conditions of farm workers, thanks to civil rights activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (now the United Farm Workers), farm workers continue to face many issues despite their critical contributions to the country.

On National Farm Workers Day, we not only thank and pay tribute to farm workers for their hard work, but also remind ourselves that they are still taken for granted even today.

On this day, there are many ways that people can observe National Farm Workers Day.

One way would be to take the time to learn more about farm workers' enormous contributions and the plights that they continue to face.

For instance, 70% of the farming workforce is said to be made up of undocumented immigrants. In fact, the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group, describes undocumented farmworkers as "indispensable to the U.S. food system." Although these undocumented farm workers contribute $9 billion to the fruit and vegetable industry alone, they themselves usually don't have enough for their own families.

"Farmworkers are feeding the entire country with enough food to export to other places," noted National Today. "Ironically, at the end of the month, they have a limited supply of food left for themselves because they make the lowest annual family income in the United States."

Another way would be to donate to organizations that help farm workers, perhaps even hosting a simple fundraiser among family and friends would work.

Raising awareness about their problems, whether among friends or via social media, may also be a good way to observe National Farm Workers Day.

The observance actually also falls within National Farmworkers Awareness Week (NFAW), which this year is from March 26 to April 22, and has a similar message of raising awareness about the issues and hazards that farm workers face.

People can take part in the observance via the national long-sleeve shirt drive, which has the goal of collecting long-sleeve shirts nationwide. The initiative is being conducted to help prevent farm workers' exposure to heat stress and pesticides, explained the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP).

"The distribution of the shirts will help reinforce the importance of wearing adequate work clothing to help protect farmworkers from pesticide exposure and heat-related illnesses," AFOP noted.

People interested in donating their long-sleeved shirts may find a list of the drop-off locations in their state on the AFOP website.