Thread: No Widespread Shortage of Farm Labor

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CIS Study Shows No Widespread Shortage of Farm Labor

A recent study authored by Professor Philip Martin of the University of California, Davis and released by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that there is no widespread shortage of farm labor in the United States. The study also finds that because labor costs comprise only 6 percent of the cost of fresh produce, wages could still rise 40 percent and the cost to the average household would be only about $8 a year.

Professor Martin reaches his conclusions by examining two trends. First, Martin notes that data show farm productivity rising, not falling. If farmers were experiencing an actual labor shortage, Martin argues, productivity would fall and farmers would begin to plant less. Second, Martin evaluates data showing a slowing rise in farm workers' wages, especially in California and Florida where wages are rising at a slower rate than in the rest of the country. Martin also points out that growers are less frequently offering non-wage benefits such as housing that were once used to attract workers.

This and other findings in the CIS study directly challenge the claims by agribusiness that crops are dying in the field and that placing a requirement on all employers to verify work eligibility would cause the price of fruits and vegetables to skyrocket. They also demonstrate that there is no immediate need to expand the existing agricultural guest worker program (H-2A program). Martin suggests that because there is no economic or government definition of a labor shortage, growers may simply claim to have a shortage of workers if there are plenty of workers, but many of them leave for higher paying jobs.

Martin notes that government reports also suggest that there are no widespread farm labor shortages, pointing to both the September 2007 Congressional Research Service report and the 1997 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. However, even if a farm workers shortage were to occur, Martin argues that it would have little impact on the prices of fruits and vegetables. Given that the average person currently spends $1 on fresh fruits and vegetables per day, a labor shortage would only increase his or her daily expenditure by 2 cents. Over the course of a year, this would come to an additional $7.80 spent on fresh fruit and vegetables.

Fresh fruits and veggies are already so expensive, we buy very few. We are not the only ones either. I see the produce at the stores laying there until it begins to shrivel and no one buying it.

Milk is between $4.50 and $5 a gallon -

They have known that labor is not the big thing - it is the fact that it is cheaper, but they don't have to be concerned with bookkeeping, taxes, workman's comp, paying if one get's hurt (that's taxpayer's job), etc.

I'm not sure it would affect us all that much anyway - check out how much of our produce is imported -