For one group of workers in the United States, the baby formula shortage is a complex crisis threatening their young kids' well-being and livelihoods. Weekly grocery trips of many American shoppers don't require much more than a short car ride into town.
But that is not the case for women farmworkers, many of whom live in food desert areas close to their jobs. These female workers must travel significant distances away from their homes to get even the most basic food essentials, according to CNN.
That is the dilemma for women like Maria, who has an eight-year-old daughter, a three-year-old son, and a one-year-old baby boy. The 26-year-old mom came from Guanajuato in central Mexico and has been a farmworker in the United States since 2017.
Baby formula shortage a major problem for families in California
She is struggling to feed both of her sons, who need specialized lactose-free formula because of digestive issues that prevent the two of them from getting the nutrients they need from cow's milk.
Maria said both of them throw up a lot because of this problem. Unfortunately for Maria, her formula supply is stretched thin, and she is currently struggling to find more amid the ongoing formula shortage in the country.
Their family currently lives in Salton Sea Beach in Southeast California, a hot and dry place that is not the most comfortable place to be living. The fertile land around the lake provides robust farm work, as this is where seasonal crops such as lemons, grapefruit, cabbage, lettuce, and broccoli are grown.
Maria asked not to include her last name in the interview, and it is not surprising to see her reluctance to share that information. Mily Treviño-Sauceda, the executive director and co-founder of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, a national organization representing more than 700,000 women farmworkers across 20 states, said the reality is that more than 60 percent of women farmworkers are undocumented in the U.S.
Families buy formula south of the border in Mexico due to the shortage
According to government estimates, at least half of all farmworkers in the United States are undocumented immigrants. Treviño-Sauceda noted that women farmworkers bear the brunt of the formula shortage in ways that other consumers can't begin to understand.
She explained that even if they want to breastfeed, they can't. She said they work between nine to 13 hours a day with few breaks and travel long distances to their low-pay jobs. She added that they don't have adequate healthcare or support to pump at work.
Even with the Biden administration facilitating additional shipments of formula from overseas, formula stock rates in the United States are not improving, according to the New York Post. With stores out of stock of the formula she desperately needs for weeks at a time, Maria has sometimes relied on an expensive, unpredictable, and risky solution. She has asked her brother to cross the border to find formula in Mexicali, a city in Mexico about 90 minutes from where she lives.
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