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Supply of California farm labor shrinking
FRESNO, Calif., Aug. 14 (UPI) -- California's farm laborers are in increasingly dwindling supply, causing a shortage of product in the normally busy summer harvest season.

Farmers blame an increase in border patrol efforts and competition from the construction industry. Most farm workers are normally undocumented, mainly Mexican, immigrants, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Fred Garza, an agricultural labor contractor, has about 1,000 fewer workers this summer than his usual 2,500. He said that was an indication of a widespread problem for farmers -- Garza considers his business one of the largest around.

Workers rights advocates say the problem is at least partially due to the low wages offered.

"Worker surveys have ... showed that more people would be attracted at a suitable level of pay," said Ron Strochlic, interim executive director of the California Institute for Rural Studies in Davis.

But farmer David Jackson says workers who make around $6.75 per hour cost him $9.50 in benefits.

"Eighty percent of my expenses is labor," he said.

While the U.S. Department of Labor estimates 53 percent of the workers are undocumented, farmers in California's Central Valley region put that number at closer to 90 percent.