WENATCHEE, WA - CIERTO, an international farm labor contractor that assists employers with the federal H2A visa program, is aiming to improve ethical practices. Stemilt’s President, West Mathison, and Joe Martinez, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CIERTO, sat down to talk about the impact of CIERTO in improving the migration process for H2A workers coming to work for Stemilt in the United States from Mexico.

“CIERTO is reinforcing the Ethical Charter on Responsible Labor Practices that’s been endorsed by many retailers and companies within the supply chain,” says Mathison. “The Ethical Charter Implementation Program (ECIP) is a collaboration among retailers, buyers, and grower-shippers like us to recognize and strengthen engagement around labor practices in the fresh produce industry. It aims to highlight existing best-practice efforts and identify opportunities for continuous improvement. Stemilt is a first adopter of Ethical Charter focused on implementing its practices to care for our farmworkers.”

CIERTO’s attainment of ‘Leading’ Clearview certification status is a testament to its commitment to the well-being and fair treatment of workers. To help guide farmworkers coming into the U.S. on H2A visa contacts, CIERTO is dedicated to assisting employers with the program as an international farm labor contractor.

Stemilt partnered with CIERTO in 2018 during the recruiter’s first process in the U.S. to support 300 of its farmworkers. After a recent trip to Tlaxcala, Mexico, Stemilt leadership saw the recruiter’s process in person. Today, 100 percent of Stemilt’s 1,616 H2A farmworkers come through the CIERTO program and have a 95 percent return rate.

“CIERTO’s mission is to actively develop and sustain a professional agricultural workforce that is career-oriented and committed to return to farms year after year,” says Martinez. “Before CIERTO was born in 2014, there were approximately 2.1 million workers in agriculture in the U.S. and an estimated 1.6 million of them were undocumented. Seeing these numbers made me realize the produce industry is heavily predicated on a vulnerable worker population. I needed to know, why were there so many? How did they migrate here? What was it that led to contract abandonment and displacement when they came to work on U.S. farms?”

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