NYT Farmer Headline Doesn’t Anger Latino Farmers

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

I was amused last week with the reaction to a headline on a New York Times article about how many Latino farmers have transitioned from farm work to farm ownership. The headline read “Latinos Move Up, From Picking Crops to Running the Farm (The NYT has since changed the wording).”

There was an instant  negative reaction online.

Twitter was ablaze with comments: “this is kind of racist.” “because we ALL start picking crops right? SMH. Another racist headline to add to the collection.” “Oh, NYT that is really awful.”

I had a hard time wrapping my thinking around the negative reaction. I didn’t think the headline was a problem, but I had deep concerns with the story itself. It was predictable and formulaic: information couched in personal stories and the obligatory immigration reference. And because it was predictable it missed the stories about Latino farmers in the U.S. that I think should have been reported.

Three months ago I received an email from Rudy Arredondo, President and CEO of the National Latino Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association, telling me about the final results of the USDA 2012 Ag Census. The numbers had been released just days before. All of the statistics mentioned in the NYT piece came directly from the Ad Census. Yes, there’s been a 21 percent increase in Latino farm ownership since 2007, and yes, those new farm owners were once farm workers.

Maybe it was the specific wording that rubbed so many people wrongly. There are many different ways to convey the idea of going from “picking crops to running the farm.” So I decided to go to my source, to Rudy, to see if the wording of the headline was offensive to a farmer-turned-advocate. I’ve known Rudy for at least a decade. I helped him with the first NLFRTA Convention in LasCruces, NM, in 2005. At the time the organization was budding with promise. Today it boasts 70,000 members and is in the midst of preparing their 10th anniversary conference in Albuquerque.

I read the headline to Rudy, and he was silent. “That’s what we’ve been doing ,” he said after a pause. “Many of us have gone from farm work to farming (farming, in Ag parlance means owning a farm)” he added. Rudy’s family made the transition in 1963 – his family owns a farm in Ohio. His father once administered the ranch owned by the family of former TX Senator Lloyd Bentsen. The headline didn’t phase him a bit.

Then his advocate self kicked in: “All publicity is good,” he said, “but that isn’t the story.”

“What’s not being told is that many of those farmers are immigrants,” he said, “who were forced to migrate to the U.S. after NAFTA displaced them by taking their livelihood.” “What’s not being reported is that those farmers supply businesses in places like Alabama, Michigan, Mississippi, and the Carolinas.”  “To some people” he said, “it’s a headline, but we’re just doing our work.”

Part of NLFRTA’s work is to help those new farmers in their transition from picking to owning. And this is where Rudy is most passionate. “The story,” he told me, “is about access to credit, about how some farmers are losing their farms because many who did get loans are unable to repay them.” “There are issues of sustainability,” he went on, “of the need for micro-loans, of a lack of nearby processing plants, discrimination in USDA practices. It’s a struggle to be profitable.”

As it is, some Latino farmers have branched into new areas, such as renewable energy and telecommunications – windmills and communications towers. They’re organizing co-ops in Michigan and battling corporate farms in New Mexico. They’ve added their strength to the Farm Aid Network … that’s just what they’ve been doing.

None of that was in the NYT story, and that’s the real headline.

When I asked Rudy why he thought the headline had gotten such a negative reaction, he chuckled. “That’s just the way some people think,” he said.

In the ten years since the first NLFRT Conference there has been a 21 percent growth in Latino farm ownership. All of those new farmers are working 24/7 and Rudy has his hands full trying to help them succeed. A headline is the least of his worries.