US farms are increasingly reliant on contract workers who are acutely exposed to climate extremes

Because of the terms of their employment, those laborers have specific challenges voicing concerns about their working conditions.

ILLINOIS, USA — Six years ago, Illinois farmer John Ackerman didn’t hire any contract workers at all. Now he typically hires about 22 every year through a local coordinator that helps farmers hire crews of agriculturally skilled, often Latino workers. Those teams hand-weed the soybeans Ackerman grows alongside the pumpkin and corn crops he uses for his primarily fall-focused agrotourism outfit.

He still hires about the same number of locals, around 25 part-time workers in the fall, many of them teenagers or young adults, to run sales and

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