Top 100 Vegetable Grower Jon Esformes Is A Champion For Worker Rights
October 6, 2014 
Labor has been at the top of many growers’ minds — for better or for worse — in recent years. While many have struggled to secure a stable workforce and are anxiously awaiting improvements to current immigration policies, Jon Esformes, operating partner of Pacific Tomato Growers in Palmetto, FL, ranking on our Top 100 Growers list in the Southeast, has faced these challenges head on, and developed solutions to help his labor force thrive despite the mounting pressure.
Through a strategic partnership with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in Florida, Esformes has cemented his role as a champion for agricultural workers’ rights in the state.
For acreage information on growers in the North, West, Southeast, and Southwest, click on the links below.
Editor’s Note: The information used in the charts for this year’s Top 100 was compiled based on grower feedback, industry analysis, and estimates of past production.
Securing A Labor Force
Esformes has witnessed the effects of the shrinking labor pool, and shares a similar sentiment held by many growers across the country: “We need comprehensive immigration reform,” he says.
“The voice seems to have gotten shattered somewhere, but the bottom line is that if the U.S. is going to produce its own fruits and vegetables, we need labor. We need comprehensive immigration reform that acknowledges these people that are already in the country, and that provides a sustainable source of future workers through a sustainable, fair, safe, guestworker program.”
Top 100 Grower Jon Esformes of Pacific Tomato Growers, standing with Lucas Benitez, the founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Recognizing the value of a secure labor force, Pacific Tomato Growers reached out to, and then signed an agreement in 2010 with the CIW, a worker-based human rights organization located in Immokalee, FL. It was the first formal agreement between the CIW and a major tomato grower.
As outlined in a press release from the CIW, the principles of the agreement with Pacific Tomato Growers “include a joint — and, when need be, external — complaint resolution system, a participatory health and safety program, and a worker-to-worker education process aimed at ensuring that farmworkers themselves are active participants in the social responsibility efforts.”
Esformes says he felt an effort like this one was long overdue.
“The Florida tomato industry had dealt with the coalition through industry groups, so I asked my partners and family members if anyone had actually individually met anyone from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and if anyone had had a conversation with them,” he says.
“It was very clear that we had left it up to the industry groups to do it, and we agreed that we should meet with them directly, and get to know them. That perpetuated what I call ‘a cup of coffee.’ My COO Billy Heller and I sat down with Lucas Benitez, the founder of the coalition, and realized that our goals were the same.”
So what were those goals exactly?
“What we’re after is to create a safe, fair, work environment for people to come to work, do their jobs, and be treated with the dignity that all human beings are entitled to, and then go home to their families,” he says.
Social Accountability
Esformes says many other growers in his community have felt the stress from a lack of immigration reform. But the partnership Pacific Tomato Growers formed with the CIW, and the trust it reinforced between the operation and its employees has helped it retain a stable workforce.
Coming from an immigrant family himself, Esformes says he recognizes that oftentimes, immigrants may have an inherent lack of trust for authority.
“We’re very familiar with the cultures that our workers come from, and the lack of trust in authority that exists in those countries. So what the agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has helped us do more than anything is say to our workers: When we tell you it’s OK to complain about something, we mean it.”
Understanding and recognizing the cultural environment his workers come from has been instrumental in connecting with them, and in creating an environment where they feel secure and confident that their needs are being met, he says.
A Whole Farm Management Approach
Another way Pacific Tomato Growers has taken a proactive stance with employee management is by enacting what Esformes has dubbed the “Whole Farm Management Approach.”
“The same thing we seek to do with our workforce, we needed to do internally,” he explains. “We needed everyone working in partnership with one another, and that means everybody from the farm manager, to the tractor driver to the purchasing department, to the packing operations, and so on.”
Because the operation is so large, Esformes says he wanted to be able to connect various departments together so that all employees were familiar with the challenges their coworkers managed in each segment of the business.
By hosting various company-wide events, Esformes aims to get employees that are normally inside the office out into the fields to get “their feet on the ground and boots in the dirt,” as he puts it, so they can get to know the people who are doing the ground work.
“I think that the manufacturing-line mentality is a soul killer,” he says. “And as much as we have to do that because we are involved in high-volume production — and we need people on our packing line, harvesting tomatoes, and we need people crunching numbers — we also need people to feel like they’re part of something bigger. It’s hard to do that 98% of your job without that 2% that lets you know you’re a part of something bigger.”
Looking Ahead
Esformes’ passion for workers’ rights has solidified his reputation in his community as an advocate. While other growers have struggled with labor, Pacific Tomato Growers has prospered as a result of its commitment to employees.
“We believe in community, and we believe in family. Those are our core values, and we believe that our place in agriculture is to farm the highest quality, fairest, safest, agricultural products we can. Those are our values today, and they will be our values tomorrow.”
Subscribe Today For
