Mexico’s invisible workforce and the cycle of exploitation that feeds the country’s agricultural boom
In this article for the Mexican digital platform PopLab.mx, Yajaira Gasca Ramírez reports on a government raid on a shelter housing workers for the Agroverdi agricultural company in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, revealing unsafe conditions and possible human trafficking.
Yet human rights advocates argue that the intervention is cosmetic at best, leaving untouched the structural forces that sustain the exploitation.
According to the Loyola Indigenous Development Center, Indigenous families from Guerrero, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Veracruz migrate seasonally to Guanajuato’s fields to bring in the harvest. They form a circuit of internal migration shaped by poverty, debt and lack of opportunities at home. Families live and work together, often in cramped, unhygienic shelters, with little access to education, healthcare or sanitation. Labourers are paid by output rather than hours, leading to shifts that stretch beyond 12 hours a day, without contracts, insurance or legal protection.
Although a protocol for the Care of Migrant Day Labourers has been in place since 2019, local NGOs report that it remains largely ineffective. The Loyola Center’s Florencia Martínez Sánchez says the government’s approach to the issue has been reactive: focused on providing short-term aid rather than bringing about systemic reform. Without coordination between the workers’ states of origin, the fate of seasonal labourers and their families falls between the bureaucratic cracks. There are additional barriers, too. “There’s no intercultural understanding,” she notes – no recognition of the language, cultural and logistical challenges shaping Indigenous workers’ lives.
Governor Libia Dennise García Muñoz Ledo defended the intervention of the authorities, saying poor living conditions required them to act. But the article notes the scepticism of critics about what has been achieved, questioning what it means to have “rescued” 700 workers when no viable alternatives for them exist. Workers say they arrived voluntarily, seeking a steady income. Agroverdi’s legal representative insists they were employed under fair conditions. The State Human Rights’ Ombudsman has since opened an investigation into possible abuses by the authorities during the raid.
For rights’ advocates like Abel Barrera Hernández, Director of the La Montaña Human Rights’ Center, the problem goes much deeper than one company. For decades, economic marginalisation in southern states like Guerrero has forced entire Indigenous families including Mixtec, Nahuatl, Meꞌphaa, to migrate north in search of survival. “This isn’t free migration,” Barrera explains: “It’s a survival strategy born of poverty and neglect.” Families bring their children to the fields because there is no childcare, and kids end up working alongside adults, unpaid and unprotected.
Barrera describes a silent system of institutional complicity. Agricultural companies operate off the radar, without registration, oversight or inspections, while state and federal governments prioritise economic growth. Guanajuato’s economy grew 3.2% in the first quarter of 2025, driven by a 9.5% surge in agricultural output. But behind these figures, Barrera says, lies an invisible labour force denied dignity and rights. “All the added value generated by Indigenous labour goes to the employer,” he observes: “There’s no profit sharing, no security, no recognition of their humanity.”
Despite official claims of reform, NGOs warn that most efforts remain superficial. Families receive temporary assistance but not long-term guarantees of labour protection or education continuity for their children. Activists are calling for a national census of internal migration, arguing that without reliable data, these communities remain statistically invisible and politically disposable.
As Mexico celebrates its economic expansion, the story of El Ramillete reveals the paradox beneath the promise of progress: a modern agricultural industry still dependent on colonial hierarchies of labour.
Original article ‘Más allá del Ramillete: discriminación estructural de migrantes indígenas’ by Yajaira Gasca Ramírez was published in Spanish by PopLab.mx on 12 August 2025.
It’s available here.
PopLab.mx is an independent Mexican digital platform dedicated to investigative journalism and cultural reporting, known for its focus on human rights, inequality and local politics across the states of central Mexico.
Summary by ZN
