NOGALES, AZ — Lance Jungmeyer speaks without hesitation when asked about his highest professional priority.

“Social responsibility,” said Jungmeyer, the president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas. “We want to help our members understand how to communicate the things they are already doing” to benefit their farm workers in a socially-responsible manner.

Jungmeyer noted that December’s Los Angeles Times four-piece exposé “added pressure to show what you’re doing for your employees.”

Jungmeyer added that FPAA members were plying socially-responsible business practices long before the LA Times wrote of disrespect in Mexico of field workers.

In a Jan. 19 renewed discussion of the news piece, Jungmeyer said that reporter Richard Marosi “cherry-picked information. He took a very narrow view” in reporting the worst cases of farm worker treatment. “In conversations I’ve had with produce people outside Nogales, I think they recognize that,” he added.

Also commenting on the LA Times piece was Gonzalo Avila, who is vice president and general manager of Malena Produce, Inc. Avila is FPAA’s chairman-elect and will become FPAA’s chairman in 2016.

“I don’t think depicted a fair portrait of what goes on,” he told The Produce News on Jan. 19. “For all of the growers who do a good job, it was unfair.”

Avila said he is a third-generation distributor of Mexican produce. “I have seen changes that have taken place,” he said. “Like most things, [improvements are] continuous and ongoing. This does not happen overnight but Mexico is going in the right direction for the most part. Mexico is doing a good job and that will continue.”

Avila has been in the Nogales produce business since 2002. “Things are much, much better now” within the realm of social responsibility. “It’s an ongoing, continuous effort,” he noted.

“The growers we represent are in the northwest,” Avila said. “In our areas, where I have been, I’ve not seen” worker abuse.

“If you look at the whole picture, those operators really need workers,” he continued. “It is hard to get good workers. Beyond doing the right thing, we must compete for good workers. You want them to come back. If they are trained, your cost of production goes down.”  

Avila said in order to employ field workers a company needs to have the right services and incentives.

“It’s not just wages,” he added. “But the wages we pay are significantly higher than the minimum wages. With benefits, it’s four- or five-times higher.”

In a related December 2014 report, Jungmeyer told The Produce News that FPAA is participating in the creation of a new organization, the International Fresh Produce Social Responsibility Alliance, which will engage many agricultural associations to focus on these issues.

A month later, Avila indicated that this group was being created with the cooperation of Mexico’s agricultural associations. The Mexican government “will announce this in its own time.”

But Avila said it is important that the Mexican produce industry “tell a really good, positive, strong story that has not been told. We feel it is time for Mexico to tell its story. The alliance will bring everyone together.”