Marcela Valdes wins November Sidney for In-Depth Reporting on How an Immigration Crackdown Could Spike Milk Prices
Marcela Valdes of the New York Times Magazine wins the November Sidney Award for “What a Crackdown on Immigration Could Mean for Cheap Milk,” a deeply reported feature set in the dairy country of southern Idaho where undocumented labor is keeping family dairy farms afloat.
Every day at 4:30 a.m., a farmworker named Rosa herds 1000-pound cows to the milking parlor, through icy mud and manure. Rosa does what labor statisticians call a 3-D job, which is short for dirty, dangerous, and demanding. She would be difficult to replace in south Idaho’s near full-employment economy. Rosa’s boss doesn’t know her immigration status but he concedes that more than 90% of his workers were probably born in Mexico. He doesn’t ask too many questions because he can’t afford to. Since milk is a commodity, farmers can’t raise their prices to offset increased labor costs, they have to sell to a co-op at the going rate.
The farmer’s costs have soared since he got into the dairy business in the 1980s while the inflation-adjusted price of milk has declined. Americans have become accustomed to cheap milk, but all that could change if the Trump administration cuts off the supply of immigrant labor that keeps the dairy industry afloat.
Valdes asked the head of the Idaho Dairymen’s association if it was true that the cost of milk could double in the event of a mass deportation.
“I don’t think there would be milk,” he replied. “I just don’t think we could get it done.”
“The presidential election was purportedly a referendum on the price of groceries,” said Sidney judge Lindsay Beyerstein. “Valdes was one of the few reporters who cast a critical eye on what Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda would mean for food prices.”
Marcela Valdes is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine who writes primarily about Latino and Latin American politics and culture. She lives near Washington, D.C..
Backstory
Q: How did you become interested in the role of migrant workers in the Idaho dairy industry?
A: For more than a year, I’ve been looking into the intersection of unauthorized immigration and labor, which I believe is an area that deserves deeper investigation. When I learned how dependent the dairy industry is on this workforce – and how difficult the market is for dairy farmers as well – I knew it was a topic I wanted to write about.
Q: What documents and resources did you use to help you report this story?
A: In addition to extensive interviews with dairy farmers and migrant workers, I read a lot of economic and agricultural reports and spoke with a lot of economists.
Q: How did you choose that particular farm as the centerpiece of your narrative?
A: Most dairy farmers don’t want journalists anywhere near their farms. Peter was an exception. He was honest about his dependence on unauthorized migrants – and about the economic difficulties that he faced. He was willing to speak with me regularly and to allow me to spend entire days on his farm, learning about its methods and speaking with his employees alone. Without his cooperation, such an in depth nuanced portrayal of a dairy farm would not have been possible.
Q: Can you elaborate on why dairy workers and their advocates say that temporary foreign worker programs make it harder to improve conditions in the industry?
A: Agricultural guest workers who work in the United States on H-2A visas are required to leave the country and return home every year. This makes it more challenging for workers to organize themselves and build relationships with local lawyers and labor activists. In contrast, unauthorized migrants in the American northeast have been able to create enduring organizations, like Migrant Justice, that help them document abuses in the dairy industry and fight for better working conditions.
Q: Did anything unexpected happen in the course of reporting this story?
A: Two things. First, I got used to the smell of cow dung. After a couple days, it didn’t smell any worse to me than the compost in a garden.
Second, while I was in the final months of writing and reporting this story, the national attitude towards mass deportations changed. A poll in September found that more than half of Americans were now in favor of the policy. As a result, my editors and I decided that we needed to grapple seriously with the idea of what could happen to the economy if millions of unauthorized migrants were deported and I wrote the final section of the piece at top speed.
Q: Every successful investigation helps you grow as a journalist. What did you learn from reporting this story that you will carry forward to your next assignment?
Immersing myself in this reporting taught me a lot about economic complexity. People often assume that dairy farmers and dairy workers are locked in an antagonistic relationship – the exploiter and the exploited – but their realities are more complicated than that. Sometimes they are in opposition, for sure, but their economic needs are also enmeshed. As it stands now, each of them needs the other.
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