ENFIELD, Connecticut — Gerald Gray wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to prepare his meals for the long day in the fields as one of the 100 Jamaican workers employed by the Jarmoc family on the Jarmoc Farms tobacco fields.
The work is labor intensive and during August, temperatures have reached 100 degrees during the day in Enfield. But Gray and his fellow countrymen told The Courant that this doesn’t bother them too much as they are used to working in the heat.
Back in Jamaica, Gray left behind his wife and two children. He regularly wires money home to his family.
“You’ve got to do what you have to do to make money,” he said.
Many of his fellow countrymen made similar statements about spending time away from their families each year. While in the United States, the men have formed a bond with each other like a second family.
This relationship, based upon mutual affection and respect, creates a sense of camaraderie among the men working the fields. An unofficial hierarchy has formed through Jamaican culture and for practical reasons.
The older generations of men are revered due to age and experience at the cigar-wrapper tobacco farm. Selvin Beecher is one of the group’s elders. Other workers refer to him as “Mr. Beecher,” never “Selvin.”
Beecher is the main point of contact for younger, less experienced workers in the fields, and when he directs the workers, they jump to fulfill his request.
The workers all rise together with Gray at roughly 5 a.m. to cook and prepare a packed lunch for the fields. The farm used to employ a cook, but farmer Owen Jarmoc said it wasn’t long before the Jamaican men asked to cook for themselves because they didn’t like the food that was being prepared.
In the early morning hours, the kitchen is filled with the scent of boiling rice and Jamaican-style jerk chicken.
The cooking area is relatively small, and with 50 men sleeping in the same building, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that getting the day’s food cooked and ready for each person would be bedlam.
Instead, in complete silence, the men work with a well-rehearsed rhythm and flow. Those with a specific task stoop over the counters while the rest stream out of the area and back into the sleeping quarters to ready themselves for the day’s work.
They are driven on old school buses from their accommodation in Enfield to the field on the town line between Enfield and neighboring Somers, Connecticut.
Once disembarked, they divide into two groups: those who cut down the tobacco and those who collect it.
Sammy Johnson sharpens his small hatchet and prepares to grasp the base of each tobacco plant stem to cut with a single swipe of his blade.
A water barrel is positioned behind the lines of old tractors, which all loudly sit with their engines running, waiting for the other group, including Gray, to collect the leaves and load them onto the trailers behind.
Each day the total of 125 workers will harvest 15 acres, roughly 2,000 pounds of tobacco, by hand from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The longest-working Jamaican employee is 64-year-old Edwin Rowe. “Mr. Rowe” has been working continuously at the farm for 42 years and now works alongside his 32-year-old son, Edwain Rowe.
A stream of vintage red tractors rumbles down Hazard Avenue then down Broadbrook Road toward an array of eight large red barns stacked with drying tobacco.
Jamaican workers have erected six more barns under the direction of Rowe, who has been able to judge the dimensions by memory.
The men are in the U.S. under the H2A, an agricultural visa, which allows the farm to bring foreign nationals to the U.S. to fill temporary agricultural jobs.
Last year saw a record number of migrants on H2A visas coming to the U.S. to work, according to the Wilson Center, a policy analysist group. Jamaicans account for 2% of the 258,000 H2A visas issued in 2021.
Mexico accounted for 93% of the H2A visas in 2021, South Africa for 3% and Guatemala for 1%, according to the Wilson Center.
Connecticut increased the minimum wage from $13 per hour to $14 per hour on July 1. Although the tobacco field pay at $15.66 an hour is $1.66 over the minimum wage in Connecticut, farmer Owen Jarmoc said they couldn’t find the workforce locally.
“Americans are just not interested in working out in the fields for that pay,” Owen Jarmoc said.
The Jarmoc family has run Jarmoc Farms Tobacco for over four generations.
Owen Jarmoc, 26, now runs the 1,000-acre tobacco farm with his father, Stephen Jarmoc, and will take over eventually. His sisters have both opted to pursue medicine.
The 100 Jamaican workers come over on the H2A work visas in April and most will stay until December, Owen Jarmoc said.
Their accommodation is paid for, so they focus on the laborious work in the tobacco fields until they return home with more savings than they could earn on their island, according to multiple workers.
“Once they return home, they don’t need to work until they fly back the following year,” Owen Jarmoc said.
