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Border Security, Job Market Leave Farms Short of Workers
Growers Frustrated by Delay in Agriculture Legislation

By Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 4, 2006; Page A06

CLOVIS, Calif. -- Bins of Granny Smith apples towered over two conveyor belts at P-R Farms' packing plant. But only one belt moved. P-R Farms, like farms up and down California and across the nation, does not have enough workers to process its fruit.

"We're short by 50 to 75 people," said Pat Ricchiuti, 59, the third-generation owner of P-R Farms. "For the last three weeks, we're running at 50 percent capacity. We saw this coming a couple years ago, but last year and this year has really been terrible."

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Because of a shortage of workers to pack apples, tables are empty at the P-R Farms plant in Clovis, Calif. "We're short by 50 to 75 people. For the last three weeks, we're running at 50 percent capacity," owner Pat Ricchiuti says. (By Sonya Geis -- The Washington Post)

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Farmers of all types of specialty crops, from almonds to roses, have seen the immigrant labor supply they depend on dry up over the past year. Increased border security and competition from other industries are driving migrant laborers out of the fields, farmers say.

Earlier this year, many farmers were optimistic about finding a solution in the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, or AgJobs. The bill, proposed by Sens. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), would allow undocumented agricultural workers already in the United States to become legal permanent residents and would streamline the current guest-worker program. In March and September, hundreds of growers traveled to the Capitol to lobby for the bill.

But deep divisions within the Republican Party have stalled immigration reform. Although legislation to build a 700-mile fence along the border passed the House and Senate, the AgJobs proposal has languished.

As the border tightens, Mexican workers who once spent part of each year in American fields without a work permit fear that if they go back to Mexico, they will be trapped behind the border, farmers say. Instead, they stay in the United States, taking year-round jobs that pay more and are less backbreaking than farm work, such as cleaning hotels or working in construction in cities on the Gulf Coast devastated by last year's hurricanes.

"Frequently you hear, especially from California, complaints about construction companies actually recruiting workers from the sides of the fields," said Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform. Other industries that depend on immigrant labor, such as landscaping and construction, "are also concerned about the overall availability of labor given demographic trends," he said, adding: "But agriculture is the warning sign, if you will, of structural changes in the economy."

The problem is now reaching crisis proportions, food growers say. As much as 30 percent of the year's pear crop was lost in Northern California, growers estimate. More than one-third of Florida's Valencia orange crop went unharvested, Regelbrugge said. In New York, apples are rotting on the trees, because workers who once picked the fruit have fled frequent raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, said Maureen Marshall, an apple grower in Elba.

Michael Keegan, a spokesman for the federal agency, said he could not confirm any specific targets for raids. But he said it now takes a more proactive approach to work-site enforcement, seeking to build criminal cases against employers instead of issuing fines. The agency focuses work-site raids on "critical infrastructure," he said, such as airports and chemical plants, including food processing facilities.

Critics say increased wages would keep workers in the fields. Growers contend that their wages, often minimum wage plus a piece rate, are as high as they can pay and still remain profitable. Ricchiuti echoed many growers when he said local people "don't want to do the work at any price."

Farmers also contend that an existing guest-worker program is not usable. Although some industries, such as Maryland crab pickers, rely on the H-2B program to provide foreign labor, farmers argue that the equivalent program for agriculture, known as H-2A, is too complex and has onerous requirements, such as providing housing for workers. Nationwide, only 2 percent of agricultural workers use H-2A visas, Regelbrugge said.

"We explored [H-2A], and it was so cumbersome, it just would not meet our needs," said Ricchiuti of P-R Farms, who grows apples, nectarines, nuts and grapes in California's fertile San Joaquin Valley. "It's so specific; you agree to hire so many people at this time. What if the season is two weeks late? I have to have work for them. Or pay them to do nothing."



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I guess this means they have a new excuse to raise the prices for produce now that they let in a zillion illegals and couldn't keep them down on the farm picking carrots. If they had used legal labor, sent them home, then hired them again, I don't see where this would have ever become an issue.
But, no, they go get hundreds, give them a job for two weeks, then let all of them wander to NC and VA and CO and wherever else they can find jobs rather than make sure they get their pay and go back home.