by This story is part of a CBS documentary, “The Price of Milk”, which goes within the supply chain, from farmer to table. It will be broadcast on Sunday, March 9 on CBS News 24/7 at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
Petaluma, California – In California, the no. 1 dairy producer of America, Manuel Castro by El Salvador plays a crucial role in marketing milk on the market.
“It is a process, and in this process it is 24 hours, every day … no vacation,” Castro told CBS News.
Castro lived in California for about 30 years and became an American citizen in 2009. On this specific day he loads nearly 5,000 liters of milk in a tank, which will be taken to a processing factory before he finally comes to stores within 24 hours.
Castro works for Moga Transportation, a company with a modest start that has grown into a fleet of dairy cars in the past two decades.
“We have almost 90 trucks,” said Harwinder Singh Brar, who is Moga transport co-owner of his wife, Pab Gill.
According to Bureau of Transportation Statistics, more than three billion tons of agricultural products are moved over the US every year, with trucks carrying the majority of that freight.
Brar is a Punjabi Sikh from India who came to the US for the first time in 1998 with his field hockey team. Instead of returning home, he stayed and sought asylum because of the religious persecution with which he was confronted in his home country.
Some of his employees have been at the company for ten years or more. Brar says he is trying to ensure that they are treated well.
“Well, this is my family,” said Brar. “They are not employees. They are family for us.”
Brar says that trucking depends on immigrant work. He speculates that without this the industry would ‘close’.
“Well, truck would be closed because it is now mainly immigrants,” Gill explained. “It has changed that way.”
The Trump Government has started A big performance About Immigration. But a study by the National Milk Producers Federation, a group that argues for dairy producers, indicates that eliminating immigrant work would lead to an increase in retail milk prices by 90%.
A Wisconsin Dairy Farmer told CBS News last month That approximately 90% of the work on the farm is done by immigrants.
“If I would accept Americans to do the work, I would probably have to pay around $ 100,000 a year per person, and they would only work 40-50 hours a week at that pace,” said farmer John Rosenow. “It is clear that I couldn’t afford to pay Americans as much as they want.”
Castro says: “It’s about hard work. These people are waking up, two o’clock in the morning, one o’clock in the morning, they go outside. You know, they end around 11, 10 at night. The milk doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop.”
