Posted on 07/10/2006 7:40:22 AM PDT by SJackson
WOODLAND --- A third of Jerry Dobbins' 155-acre strawberry crop rotted on the vine this year. His blueberry bushes are so heavy with fruit that the branches are hanging near the ground.
There is no one to pick them.
Dobbins Farm in Woodland is one of many farms across the state facing a huge labor shortage this growing season, as tighter security along the U.S.-Mexico border has crimped the supply of Latino migrant farm workers.
The strawberry harvest, one of the hardest fruits to pick because of it's low proximity to the ground, has already come and gone at Dobbins' farm, the largest of its kind in Southwest Washington. Now Dobbins is worried that his other crops will suffer a similar fate.
"We won't pay any of the bills on our strawberry crop this year," Dobbins said.
The labor problem is not unique to this region, either.
Production at the Bell Buoy Crab Co. in Chinook is down 50 percent since Immigration and Custom Enforcement raids in April, according to the Washington State Farm Bureau. Growers across the state are feeling the void left by the worker shortage, said Dean Boyer, spokesman for the Farm Bureau.
"This is a rolling problem. As various harvests come, farmers are going to feel the effects," Boyer said.
Dobbins was short about 100 workers on his farm this year, or about one-third of his workforce.
Extreme temperatures in late June worsened the problem. Strawberries ripened faster than usual. An acre of strawberries usually requires around two workers per acre, but this season Dobbins needed three workers per acre.
However, numbers were closer to one worker per acre.
The workforce on the farm is almost entirely made up of Latino migrant workers, and Dobbins speculates that many of his usual workers simply did not show up this year because border crossing has become too dangerous and too expensive for those who have to hire "coyote" guides to help them.
Dobbins says added security is not the answer to the nation's immigration controversy.
"It seems to me like if they would have some kind of guest worker program in place before they put pressure on the borders. It would make a lot more sense to farmers. There's got to be a better solution than what they're doing," he said.
Down the road, fellow farmer George Thoeny faces the same labor shortage. Like Dobbins and most farmers across the state, he depends on the migrant workers to stay in business. The Hispanic population, he said, is a necessity because white people are unwilling to do agricultural work.
"I personally can tell you, where I need 300 workers a day, I haven't had one Caucasian person knock on my door and say, 'I want to work for you.' I couldn't do this without the Hispanic people," Thoeny said. "Fifteen years ago we would have a steady stream of young people coming to us to ask for a job. This year, we didn't have one Caucasian person come to us," added Dobbins.
Handpicking berries is necessary for the farmers to turn a profit, because foreign competition keeps prices low. Both Dobbins and Thoeny own machines that can pick raspberries and blueberries, but they're too expensive and inefficient, Dobbins said.
Machine picking costs him about 85 cents a pound, where handpickers make about 35 cents a pound.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see its going to be a disaster," he said.
Berry-picking machines also pull green, unripened berries off the bush, making more work for farmers who have to spend more time sorting and wasting thousands of berries that won't ripen. The machines also damage fragile raspberries and create a much lower-quality product.
"The price of machine-picked fruit is almost not worth picking," Dobbins said.
The farmers are quick to defend the Latino population they employ. They mention hearing radio and TV talk show hosts portray Latinos as drug dealers and criminals, or claim that immigrants are stealing jobs from the workforce. They turn the shows off in disgust.
"I think that most of these people who work in the fields are some of the hardest-working people I've ever seen in my life. They're no different than people who live here and go to Alaska to work in the summer," Thoeny said.
Bob Baker, a Mercer Island airline pilot, takes exception. He is the author of state Initiative 946, which would have denied medical benefits, including prenatal care, to illegal immigrants. It failed to get enough signatures by Friday's deadline to get on the November ballot.
"After doing I-946 for the last three months I've talked to enough people who have lost their jobs to illegals. We keep hearing this mantra of 'doing jobs Americans won't do.' It's not true," Baker said Friday.
"I've talked to a mother in Yakima who wanted her teenage sons to get agriculture jobs and they couldn't," he said, adding that he believes employers are hiring illegal immigrants to drive down prices and avoid having to pay taxes on workers.
Baker believes that stricter law enforcement would discourage illegal immigration.
"If they knew we were serious about enforcing our law, they'd go back," he said.
Baker, though, agrees with Dobbins, Thoeny and Boyer that a guest worker program is needed for migrant workers.
Such a program would grant migrant workers a permit, for a fee, to come into the U.S. for the harvest months, and then return to Mexico for the rest of the year.
"That way, the government will know who's here, employers will have to pay FICA (tax) and benefits on workers," Baker said.
One of Dobbins long-time Latino workers, however, gets angry when she hears comments like Baker's.
Minerva Alparacio, 28, started as a migrant worker on Dobbins' Farm six years ago and now lives there permanently, sending money home to her family in Mexico.
"The only reason I'm here is to help my family," she said.
Alparacio is one of the few bilingual pickers on the farm. She learned English during night classes at Lower Columbia College.
Immigrant workers don't take jobs away from American citizens, she said.
"It makes me sad because it's not true. I never see Americans out here picking strawberries. It's not true. Besides that, we're doing the jobs they don't want to do," she said.
Alparacio also supports a guest worker program for migrants.
"A work permit would work better, if they would just work and then come home. That's not reason not to let them in," Alparacio said.
Vincente De Jesus is one such migrant who works on Dobbins' farm for the harvest and goes home to Oaxaca, Mexico, for the other eight months out of the year.
De Jesus says that he comes to America to raise money for his four children in Mexico. The work is hard in Mexico, and they don't pay enough, he said.
Crossing the border was tougher this year, too, De Jesus said.
"I knew lots of people, about 20, that tried to make it across. Only two made it," he said.
The shortage of workers is also creating extra pressure on the workers who remain here, according to employees and volunteers at the Woodland Community Service Center.
The center gives out food to low-income families in the area, and serves several farm-worker families.
"We stay open until 7 now, because they can't get away from the farms for the 5 p.m. distribution," said Agnes Schmitz, an office worker at the Community Service Center.
For Dobbins and Thoeny, who struggle to come up with a working solution for this problem, a future for farming seems bleak.
"Usually farmers can improvise and come up with a plan B," Thoeny said. "The depressing part is, there is no plan B."
many farms across the state facing a huge labor shortage this growing season, as tighter security along the U.S.-Mexico border has crimped the supply of Latino migrant farm workers.
No, they're facing a labor shortage due to a business model built on violating the law. There's been no reduction in LEGAL migrant workers.
Don't tell me, you didn't do a search before you posted this. Right??
:D
I'm new at posting and so nervous, but I did a search and posted it this morning. It wasn't so hard after all (to post) I might do it again sometime!
The seasonal cherries and blueberries are now very cheap in the grocery stores. I don't know if we are importing more or not but if there is a shortage of labor for US growers, it isn't hitting suburbia as yet.
Why not roll up your sleeves and pick all this yourself.
Its called hard work that you earn the sweat and tears.
An excellent point. This is the best year I can ever remember for excellent, sweet fruit. And it's the cheapest I ever remember it.
I paid $2 a pint for blueberries and $2.99 a pound for cherries this past weekend. I don't expect people will pay much more - maybe a little more but not much more. If American growers can't supply produce at those prices, I expect South American growers will.
Just the jobs that the 12 to 20 million illegals already here won't do.
In my area, if you are white, you must be at least 16 years old to pick fruit...If you are an illegal Mexican, the entire family is out in the field...
Even back in the 60s, if a farmer could get a family of Mexicans, he wouldn't hire white people...
Hardly anyone is my area has used humans to pick blueberries or cherries in years...
"I think that most of these people who work in the fields are some of the hardest-working people I've ever seen in my life. They're no different than people who live here and go to Alaska to work in the summer," Thoeny said.
Obviously, the Caucasians go to Alaska because he has made his preference for Latinos clear. He/they set themselves up. They made it necessary for the Caucasians to go to Alaska. When the Latinos leave, those that would go to Alaska will probably stay - and work for Dobbins and Thoeny.
There's an idea! Let their cheap labor fuel their economies. They can grow it there and send it to us.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, isint that too bad. I honestly hope these farmers go bankrupt. Any business that requires ILLEGAL labor to make ends meet does not deserve to be in business.
You know, my finances each month would be in much better shape if I could steal gasoline and natural gas. I think the government should give me amnesty to steal my energy needs, because my job isn't profitable enough with my current business model. If businesses are allowed to skirt the law to make more money, then I should be allowed to do so as well.
Because non-hispanics are justifiably AFRAID to be out in the fields with the hispanics that think they OWN the labor rights.
This article is such BS propaganda! Berry field owners in the US are using an extremely inefficient labor model. Workers stoop and carry boxes back and forth. Europe and New Zealand, for example, produce berries and there the (lesser numbered and better paid) pickers recline on mobile carriers that allow them to pick more per hour and not get worn out.
the berry farmer in this article is just rationaling his poor practices--at our national expense.
Use prison labor and detained illegals?...........hmmmmm
Using cheap labor. US fruit cannot compete with imported fruit.
Fruit growers will go out of business without low cost labor.
"migrants" must be the new liberal talking point
I saw this story over the weekend about a boatload of "migrants" trying to sneak into florida
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/07/08/migrant.boat/
Cuban migrant dies in high-speed dash to Florida
Coast Guard stops boat loaded with 31 migrants
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- A woman died after the Coast Guard chased and captured a speedboat carrying 31 Cuban migrants and three suspected immigrant smugglers about 4 miles off the coast of Boca Chica, Florida, on Saturday, the Coast Guard said.
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