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  1. #1
    Senior Member Skippy's Avatar
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    Farms' harvest: lack of workers

    http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/l ... 78,00.html

    Farms' harvest: lack of workers
    Growers claiming new immigration laws root cause

    Darin Mcgregor © News
    By Deborah Frazier And Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News
    September 9, 2006

    Colorado farmers are running short of workers and face potential losses of millions of dollars this growing season because of new state laws scaring off immigrant laborers.

    "It's been devastating," said Andy Grant, of Grant Family Farms near Wellington, the state's largest organic grower. "Farm workers in America are afraid to travel to Colorado."

    Spanish language media broadcast information about the new laws across the county, worrying workers about coming to Colorado, Grant said.

    Field supervisor Felipe Muñoz, who has worked at Grant Family Farms for 22 years, said he usually has almost double the number of workers at harvest time that he has this season.

    Some crops were simply left unharvested because there weren't enough workers to thin, weed and pick them.

    A nearby field of lettuce was left unpicked because there weren't enough workers to get to the plants before they were choked by weeds.

    Colorado farmers, ranchers, dairies, packing plants and green industries, such as sod growers and nursery owners, are especially concerned about a law that goes into effect Jan. 1.

    That law, approved during the special legislative session on immigration in July, requires employers to verify Social Security numbers and save proof that workers are legal.

    The state will perform random audits and employers face a $5,000 fine for the first violation and up to $25,000 for the second offense.

    Gov. Bill Owens, who convened the special session in which the new law was passed, said a labor shortage isn't an excuse to break the law, according to spokesman Dan Hopkins.

    "We're past putting our head in the sand and saying it's OK to break the law," said Hopkins.

    Colorado agriculture is a $16 billion enterprise and ranks with energy production and tourism as one of the top three industries in the state.

    Long-time 'dependence'

    Seasonal and migrant workers make up about half the state's agricultural labor force, said Jimmie Dean of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, which represents 18,000 family farms in Colorado.

    Jared Koch of the Colorado Farm Bureau, which has 28,000 members, said the new immigration laws could chew a $59.9 million hole in the state's agricultural production in each of the next three years.

    An American Farm Bureau Federation's study, using federal statistics, estimated that 50 percent to 75 percent of the nation's agricultural labor force have "questionable" documents, said Austin Perez, the federation's director of congressional relations.

    The figure may be higher in Colorado, said Dawn Thilmany, a professor of agricultural economics at Colorado State University.

    "Most estimates say 85 to 90 percent of the agricultural labor force are illegal in some way, either undocumented or have illegal documents," said Thilmany.

    "There's been a dependence for a long time," she said.

    Fear of roadside stops

    Colorado producers are already feeling the bite and "are definitely having trouble finding an affordable work force this year," Koch said.

    "The political scene is changing," said Luis Indacochea, another supervisor at Grant Family Farms. "Word is getting to the people in the farmworker community that people without documents can no longer find work. You mix that with the rumors that go around, and you end up with a bad situation. I do believe word has gotten out that Colorado is a hostile place."

    Indacochea, who spends part of the year working agriculture jobs in Georgia, said he had planned to come to Colorado with several other workers, but they changed their minds after learning about the state's new tough immigration laws.

    "They were afraid. They had heard that there were immigration roadside stops, and that they would be asked for proof of legal residency or citizenship everywhere they went," he said.

    Seasonal workers pack potatoes, herd sheep and cattle, prune orchards and vineyards, thin sugar beets, cut sod, milk dairy cows, tend saplings at tree farms, weed organic vegetable fields and hand harvest crops from apples to zucchini.

    While most producers say they check documents, no one knows how many workers are legal or illegal.

    "Everyone presents themselves as legal. We already check their documents," said Bruce Talbott, of Talbott Farms in Palisade.

    Talbott employs up to 200 workers a year for trimming trees, thinning buds, harvesting peaches and apples, packing and shipping, he said.

    The Talbotts didn't have trouble filling jobs this year, but next year may be different, he said.

    "I don't know which ones of my guys doesn't have good documents, but some of them have worked here for five or 10 years," he said.

    Recruiting futile

    Food growers elsewhere in the state said Talbott was lucky.

    Robert Boxberger, who raises summer squash, sweet corn, onions and sugar beets near Fort Collins, said there's "a whole lot fewer workers" this year and next year will be worse.

    Most years, Boxberger employs 40 seasonal workers. He says he won't hire anyone without documents. This year, he's only been able to hire 30, which will mean lower production.

    "I planted 300 acres of sugar beets. I'll get half the yield because I can't find enough people to weed," he said. An acre usually produces $800 to $900 in sugar beets.

    Farm worker wages have traditionally been low, but growers say they've gone up without attracting new workers.

    Frank Eckhardt grows sugar beets, onions, feed corn and alfalfa near Greeley. He said he usually pays workers $7 to $7.50 an hour, but offered $10 an hour this year and couldn't find enough help.

    Organic growers who rely on workers - not chemicals - to control weeds have felt the worst crunch.

    "Early in the year, I talked with workers in Florida and California who have worked for us before," Grant said. "They said they were afraid to travel here."

    Grant said he spent two weeks in July recruiting farm workers with documents, but couldn't get enough help.

    And, Grant said he requested farm workers from the Colorado Department of Labor in May, but the agency hasn't provided a single worker.

    "We and a lot of farmers have lost up to 50 percent of our production because we didn't have workers," said Grant, who grew vegetables on 2,000 acres last year, but will harvest only 500 acres this year.

    Call for guest workers

    Farmers across the state echoed Grant and pushed for a new federal guest worker program, which could provide enough qualified help.

    "We need a way to get workers that are legal and dependable," said Mackie O'Neal, of O'Neal Produce, which ships cantaloupes and onions from the Arkansas Valley near Rocky Ford.

    Under the current federal guest worker program, agriculture producers apply for temporary visas, known as H2As, but the wait for help can last up to a year and many requests go unfilled.

    "You don't know if you are going to get all the workers you need or not," said Sharon Harris, executive director of the Colorado Greenhouse and Nursery Association, which also relies on seasonal workers.

    Congress adjourned without passing a better guest worker program.

    "The H2A program is so expensive and so difficult. We've watched Washington, D.C., struggle with creating a guest worker program for years," Harris said.

    "Why would you think a five-day session of the state legislature would find a workable solution?" Harris said.

    Owens also wants to see a federal guest program created, Hopkins said.

    "It may take an actual impact in agriculture to create the pressure at a national level for a guest worker program," he said.

    Farm work involves long hours in 100-degree temperatures, bending over all day to weed and carrying heavy sacks at harvest.

    "Who's going to fill that void in seasonal labor?" said John Stencel, of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. "At first, there were Japanese and Chinese farm workers in Colorado. Then, it was the German and Russian immigrants. Now, it's Hispanics. It's hard work, and it's backbreaking. Where do we go to replace that labor force?"

    Immigration crackdown

    $5,000 Fine for first offense for employing an illegal immigrant

    $16 billion: annual farm revenue in Colorado

    $59.9 million: Estimated potential losses because of labor shortages

    50% to 75%: Estimated share of the work force with questionable documentation.Sources: American Farm Bureau Federation, Colorado Department Of Agriculture

  2. #2
    Senior Member CountFloyd's Avatar
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    Perhaps the reason is they can now get a better paying job in construction, so why should they work for peanuts?

    Since there's no longer even a pretense that these are "seasonal" workers who return home each year, where's the surprise.

    Looks like the growers are going to have to raise wages to get workers - imagine that!
    It's like hell vomited and the Bush administration appeared.

  3. #3
    MW
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    Senior Member MW's Avatar
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    Anything can be bought for a price, including farm labor. Heck, our Congress has been proving this for years!

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts athttps://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  4. #4
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    I'm sooooooooo tired of reading about these whining farmers

    Why not move their farms to Mexico where they can get all the cheap labor they need? No, they want us to keep subsidizing their illegal labor.
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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