Falsified UCLA Report Deceives Public About WA Farmers

Save Family Farming condemns unethical, deeply flawed report attacking Washington farmers with sweeping, unsupported accusations and egregious false claim that farmers closely following federal law are allegedly exploiting a “loophole”

(OLYMPIA, Wash.) A new UCLA-sponsored report draws false and harmful conclusions unsupported by research, attacking Washington state farmers and deceiving the public about the guest workers hired by farmers here in the state.

Save Family Farming is speaking out against the report, titled “Manufacturing Farmworker Displacement: How Local Agricultural Workers Are Displaced in Washington State,” authored by Ph.D. candidate Rosa María Navarro.

Not only did Navarro’s report fail to follow several critical ethics and transparency practices, but the information she claims to have gathered doesn’t support the highly-politicized conclusions she reached and is now promoting in the media.

“This document should never have been published with the credibility of a major research university, as though its flawed sampling and biased conclusions were established fact,” said Ben Tindall, Executive Director of Save Family Farming.

“Washington farmers are frequently being attacked by anti-farming activist organizations. It is unacceptable to now see this activism, dressed up as academic research, and then given the University of California name to make patently false claims against agriculture appear credible,” Tindall said.

Perhaps one of the most revealing examples of the report’s distorted framing is its characterization of the H-2A guest worker program’s recruitment process as a “loophole.” Washington agricultural employers participating in H-2A are required to use the state Employment Security Department’s system to advertise available positions and recruit domestic farmworkers, as part of the federally established process.

Farmers using this process are not exploiting a loophole, as the author of this report falsely claims – they’re directly following the federal program’s specific rules.

Federal H-2A regulations establish requirements including state Employment Security Department approval of job orders, referral of qualified domestic applicants and additional recruitment requirements. Agricultural employers are required to comply with it.

“Calling compliance with federal law a ‘loophole’ is an astonishing distortion,” said Tindall. “Farmers are being instructed by the federal government how they must recruit workers, they follow those instructions, and then this report turns around and portrays their compliance as evidence of wrongdoing.”

Tindall said the characterization exposes a troubling theme running through the report.

“Demonizing farmers for complying with the very process the government requires them to follow is neither rational nor fair,” Tindall continued. “That is where this stops looking like objective scholarship and starts looking like an activist searching for evidence to validate their confirmation bias.”

The H-2A program also carries significant costs and obligations that the UCLA report largely fails to account for in advancing the narrative that employers choose H-2A workers for financial advantage. H-2A employers must meet federally established wage requirements and provide benefits including free approved housing, transportation and other expenses, while guaranteeing workers a substantial portion of the hours identified in their contracts.

“You cannot credibly argue that farmers are choosing H-2A workers to save money, while ignoring the enormous additional costs farmers are legally required to bear when they use the program,” Tindall said. “That omission alone should cause readers to question whether this report began with an objective research question or with a predetermined conclusion.”

Save Family Farming is also concerned about the line between independent academic research and political advocacy in the report. The organization points to the author’s disclosed “scholar-activist” perspective and questions the absence of a meaningful discussion of potential limitations or bias in the report’s methodology.

Save Family Farming emphasized that legitimate concerns about the treatment of farmworkers should be taken seriously, and that employers who violate labor laws should be held accountable. But accountability must also apply to researchers and institutions making accusations against farmers.

“We absolutely support fair treatment and dignity for every farmworker, whether that worker lives in Washington year-round or comes here legally through the H-2A program,” Tindall said. “And when an employer breaks the law, hold that employer accountable. What we will not accept is using isolated cases and a fundamentally inadequate sample to smear an entire agricultural community. We do not believe that UCLA should allow its name and academic reputation to be used as camouflage for political advocacy.”