Philip Martin Professor Emeritus, Agricultural and Resource Economics
Philip Martin received his degree from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 1975. His research focuses on: immigration,
farm labor, and economic development.
Martin is Chair of the University of California’s Comparative
Immigration and Integration Program, and editor of the monthly
Migration News and the quarterly Rural Migration News.
Martin has earned a reputation as an effective analyst who can
develop practical solutions to complex and controversial
migration and labor issues. In the U.S., he was the only academic
appointed to the Commission on Agricultural Workers to assess the
effects of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. He
received UC Davis’ Distinguished Public Service award in 1994.
Heassessed the prospects for Turkish migration to European Union
between 1987 and 1990, evaluated the effects of immigration on
Malaysia’s economy and its labor markets in 1994-95, and
Martin was a member of the Binational Study of Migration between
1995 and 1997. In 2001-02, he assessed the options for dealing
with unauthorized migration into Thailand.
2101 Social Sciences & Humanities Building
Davis, CA
Maricruz Ladino spends long nights in a freezing lettuce cooler,
inspecting and packaging pre-washed salad mixes. She usually
starts her shift around 4 p.m., after the pickers are done in the
fields, working until at least 2 or 3 in the morning.
American agriculture employs some 2.5 million workers during a
typical year, most for fewer than six months. Three fourths of
these farm workers are immigrants, half are unauthorized, and
most will leave seasonal farm work within a decade. What do these
statistics mean for farmers, for laborers, for rural America?
