Mexican farm strike leaders to meet with growers as crops rot

For the last week, striking farmworkers in Baja California have all but stopped the winter harvest, right at its peak. While crops rot, indigenous pickers are rallying on streets and plazas as police and army soldiers keep watch, putting the normally sleepy region on edge.

Negotiations between labor leaders and agribusinesses are scheduled to resume today in a meeting that could determine whether the walkout – the first in decades by Baja farmworkers – comes to an end or extends its sometimes violent run.

At stake is one of Mexico’s biggest harvests – millions of tons of berries, tomatoes and cucumbers that are exported to the United States. Some shortages have been reported, and Mexican police arrested more than 200 people after protests devolved into riots, rock-throwing and vandalism last week.

Bracing for more unrest, business owners this week boarded up shops and restaurants in San Quintin and nearby towns, and more than 1,000 police and army soldiers have spread across the region 200 miles south of San Diego. Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights sent observers after protesters complained of unlawful arrests and police mistreatment.

The strike comes a month after Mexico’s agricultural sector established an alliance of industry trade groups focused on improving the lives of farmworkers.

The International Produce Alliance to Promote a Socially Responsible Industry was formed after the Los Angeles Times published “Product of Mexico,” a series documenting labor abuses at Mexican export farms.

Enrique Martinez y Martinez, Mexico’s secretary of agriculture, said in February that the group would work to guarantee workers’ access to decent housing and health care, as well as wages and benefits in compliance with federal law. But the lack of specific remedies has raised doubts among some human rights groups and labor unions.