Crops ready; where are workers?
Friday, May 04, 2007
By Chris Killian
Special to the Gazette

Rodney Winkel is worried.

His 90-acre asparagus crop is ready to be harvested, but the Watervliet farmer doesn't have enough laborers to pick it. Earlier this week, he had 14 migrant workers ready to harvest the crop. He needs 32 per day.

``If things don't start to change, a lot of food is simply going to be left in the ground,'' he said. ``This is a big problem, and many people don't even know it.''

Also a grower of apples and cherries, Winkel said that if the shortage in migrant labor continues through the summer, he will lose ``tens of thousands of dollars'' this year.

Unfortunately, there is not much cause for optimism, according to Rick Olivarez, state monitor advocate for the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth.

``We're predicting a shortage of migrant help statewide,'' he said. ``This could translate into major impacts on the economic conditions of farms and, therefore, added costs to consumers.''

The reason for the continued shortage, Winkel said, is that migrant workers and their families are not moving around the country as much as they used to.

``With all the raids going on, they're scared,'' he said of efforts by federal law enforcement and immigration officials to find undocumented laborers in the United States. ``I don't blame them.''

Olivarez expects even fewer migrant farm workers to funnel into Michigan than last year, when, according to the Michigan Farm Bureau, farmers reported a 30 percent worker shortage.

The possibility exists that more migrant workers from Texas could become available when their children get out of school in late May, but, Olivarez said, ``it doesn't seem likely.''

About 90,000 migrant laborers and family members come to the state each year, according to the Michigan Interagency Migrant Service Committee.

For the past six years, officials from the state's labor department have traveled to Texas to promote opportunities for migrant workers in Michigan's agricultural industry.

This year, officials have talked with 500 to 600 families, Olivarez said, less than last year.

The current challenges come at a time when the immigration debate is again heating up in the U.S. Congress. Winkel said he is anxious to see Congress pass comprehensive immigration reform that focuses on the practical necessity of migrant labor, not on what he calls fear.

``Give them a work visa, a Green Card, something,'' he said. ``I'd say 99.9 percent of them are hard-working, law-abiding citizens. They want to do the jobs Americans don't, and we need their help.

``I understand the need for security, but who is going to harvest the crops?''

Bob Colgren, a farming colleague of Winkel's, is worried that a continued shortage of migrant labor might mean an end to farming as we know it.

Produce increasingly will be grown in other countries and shipped to the U.S., and large farms could be bought and developed if the trend continues, he said.

``We might lose all this farmland,'' said Colgren, a second-generation farmer who grows apples and cherries in Lawrence. ``I don't think people want to see that happen.''

He travels to Washington, D.C. once a year to speak with U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, and U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, pleading with them to pass meaningful legislation that provides a legal way for migrant workers to enter the country.

``They understand where we're coming from,'' he said. ``But this has become such a political football that nothing gets done. Meanwhile, the rug is being pulled out from underneath us.''

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