Committee hears that Vermont dairy depends on migrant workers; advocates urge sustained safety, housing and training support

Researchers and farmers told the Agriculture, Food Resiliency, & Forestry Committee that Vermont’s dairy industry is highly dependent on migrant labor and that the state faces gaps in training, housing and mental‑health resources for those workers.

Dan Baker, a UVM Extension principal investigator, told the committee that surveys of dairy farms show “over 90% employed migrant workers” on farms that hire outside family labor, and that his recent work found about 925 migrant workers and their families working on roughly 50 farms in the region. He said the workforce is changing: a rising share of workers come from Guatemala, more women and children are living on farms, and many workers speak little or no English.

That trend, Baker said, raises safety and housing concerns: “with women and children … it’s a really different situation,” he said, describing requests by some farms for separate family apartments. He told the committee that housing repairs and replacements funded through a program with Champlain Housing Trust and Vermont…