Thread: U.S. farmers go where workers are: Mexico

U.S. farmers go where workers are: Mexico

By Julia Preston
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/04/ ... export.php
Tuesday, September 4, 2007


Workers harvesting broccoli on one of several Central Mexico farms that comprise VegPacker de Mexico. (Janet Jarman for The New York Times)

CELAYA, Mexico: Steve Scaroni, a farmer from California, looked across a luxuriant field of lettuce here in central Mexico and liked what he saw: full-strength crews of Mexican farm workers with no immigration problems.

Farming since he was a teenager, Scaroni, 50, built a $50 million business growing lettuce and broccoli in California's Imperial Valley, relying on the hands of immigrant workers, most of them Mexicans and many probably in the United States illegally.

But early last year he began shifting part of his operation to rented fields here. Now, about 500 Mexicans tend his crops in Mexico, where they run no risk of deportation.

"I'm as American red-blood as it gets," Scaroni said, "but I'm tired of fighting the fight on the immigration issue."

A sense of crisis prevails among American farmers who rely on immigrant laborers, more so since legislation in the U.S. Senate failed in June and the authorities announced a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants. According to growers and lawmakers in the United States and Mexico, an increasing number of farmers have been testing the alternative of raising crops across the border, where many of the workers are.

Western Growers, an association representing farmers in California and Arizona, conducted an informal telephone survey of its members in the spring. Twelve large agricultural businesses that acknowledged having operations in Mexico reported a total of 11,000 workers here.

"It seems there is a bigger rush to Mexico and elsewhere," said Tom Nassif, the Western Growers president, who said Americans were also farming in countries in Central America.

Precise statistics are not readily available on American farming in Mexico, because growers seek to maintain a low profile for their operations abroad. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, displayed a map on the Senate floor in July locating more than 46,000 acres, or about 18,500 hectares, that American growers are cultivating in just two Mexican states, Guanajuato and Baja California.

"Farmers are renting land in Mexico," Feinstein said. "They don't want us to know that."

She predicted that more American farmers would move to Mexico for the ready work force and lower wages. Feinstein favored a measure in the failed immigration bill that would have created a new guest worker program for agriculture and a special legal status for illegal immigrant farm workers.

In the past, some Americans have planted south of the border to escape spiraling land prices and to ensure year-round deliveries of crops they can produce only seasonally in the United States. But in the past three years, Nassif and other growers said, labor uncertainties have become a major reason why more farmers have shifted to Mexico.

While there are benefits for Mexico, as American farmers bring the latest technology and techniques to the rich soil of its northern regions, economists say that thousands of middle-class jobs supporting agriculture are being lost in the United States. Some lawmakers in the United States also point to security risks when food for Americans is increasingly produced in foreign countries.

Tromping through one of his first lettuce crops near Celaya, an agricultural business hub in the state of Guanajuato, Scaroni is more candid than many farmers about his move here. He had made six trips to Washington, he said, to plead with Congress to provide more legal immigrants for agriculture.

Without legal workers in California, he said, "I have no choice but to offshore my operation."

The Department of Labor has reported that 53 percent of the 2.5 million farm workers in the United States are illegal immigrants, though growers and labor unions say as much as 70 percent of younger field hands are illegal.

As the American authorities have tightened the border in recent years, seasonal migration from Mexico has been interrupted, demographers say. Many illegal farm laborers, reluctant to leave the United States, have abandoned the arduous migrant work of agriculture for year-round construction and service jobs. Labor shortages during harvests have become common.

Some academics say warnings of a farm labor debacle are exaggerated. "By and large, the most dire predictions don't come true," said Philip Martin, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis.

"There is no doubt that some people can't count on workers showing up as much as they used to," he said. "But most of the places that are crying the loudest are exceptional cases."

However, some recent studies suggest that strains on the farm labor supply are real. Steve Levy, an economist at the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, compared unemployed Americans with illegal immigrant workers in the labor market. "The bottom line," he concluded, "is that most unemployed workers are not available to replace fired unauthorized immigrant workers," in part because very few of the unemployed are in farm work.

Scaroni said he had started growing in Mexico reluctantly, after seeing risks to his American operations. At peak season, his California company, Valley Harvesting and Packing, employs more than a thousand immigrants, and all have filled out the required federal form, known as an I-9, with Social Security numbers and other identity information. "From my perspective everyone that works for me is legal," he said. But based on farm labor statistics, he surmises that many of his workers have presented false documents.

Transferring to Mexico has been costly, he said. Since the greens he cuts here go to bagged salads in supermarkets, he rigidly follows the same food safety practices as California.

Scaroni expects recover his start-up costs because of the lower wages he pays farm workers here, $11 a day as opposed to about $9 an hour in California, although Mexican workers are less productive in their own country, he said.

"It's not a cake walk down here," he said. "At least I know the one thing I don't have to worry about is losing my labor force because of an immigration raid."

Good riddance then. Now maybe honest farmers who rely on a legal labor force can make it for a change!

I wonder who he thinks is going to buy his Mexican produce?

Not me.!!

Agree. If you can't afford legal employees, you shouldn't be in business. Take your stinkin farm elsewhere, we don't need you here either. Don't leave mad, just leave.

This is encouraging news.Let them go to Mexico it will help provide legal jobs for Mexicans and those farmer can give up their US farm Subsidies too.So it is a win win situation for American tax payers and Mexican workers !

I bet they are hiding their moves to Mexico so they somehow can continue to receive their farm subsidies ....

Originally Posted by Equalizer

I wonder who he thinks is going to buy his Mexican produce?

Not me.!!

As long as you KNOW its been grown in Mexico. We'll see if it actually says grown in Mexico. If the corporate headquarters is still here, then it may say grown in the USA.

All I can say is wash, wash, wash, any thing you think comes from out of the country. Also, some of the ecoli and problems have come from the states in the Imperial Valley where is company is from. Years ago we had a massive out break from strawberries grown in Mexico. All the stores pulled them. Now that you see any gump style portable potties it has gotten better but if you don't see them in their fields DON'T EAT THEIR PRODUCT.

This is great, a rich farmer in our town is a Mexican who moved here decades ago. He never because a citizen, instead just kept renewing his green card. I hope he moves all his farming operations to Mexico!

Good riddance: California growers moving operations to Mexico
http://lonewacko.com/blog/archives/007008.html

Please extend your right hand, palm outstretched, then slowly move it a few millimeters back and forth as we all wave good bye, good riddance to some California growers who've moved their operations to Mexico ("U.S. farmers go where workers are: Mexico" by Julia Preston of the New York Times).

There's a "sense of crisis" among growers over supposed attempts to enforce our laws. Only one (1) hacendado economic expat grower is quoted (Steve Scaroni of Valley Harvesting and Packing) although Tom Nassif of Western Growers claims that twelve large companies employ 11,000 in Mexico. Scaroni "surmises that many of his [U.S.] workers have presented false documents". His Mexican workers get $11 a day versus about $9 an hour in the U.S.

...Precise statistics are not readily available on American farming in Mexico, because growers seek to maintain a low profile for their operations abroad. But Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, displayed a map on the Senate floor in July locating more than 46,000 acres, or about 18,500 hectares, that American growers are cultivating in just two Mexican states, Guanajuato and Baja California.

[...possible security risk from importing foreign crops, supposed loss of higher-wage jobs of those higher up the food chain...]

...Some academics say warnings of a farm labor debacle are exaggerated. "By and large, the most dire predictions don't come true," said Philip Martin, an agricultural economist at the University of California, Davis.

...However, some recent studies suggest that strains on the farm labor supply are real. Steve Levy, an economist at the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, compared unemployed Americans with illegal immigrant workers in the labor market. "The bottom line," he concluded, "is that most unemployed workers are not available to replace fired unauthorized immigrant workers," in part because very few of the unemployed are in farm work.

Obviously, just because someone has done one thing in the past doesn't mean they can't do something else, so I tend to suspect his study was designed to obtain a specific conclusion. As for the security risk of importing food, it's definitely there. However, the security risk of having millions of foreign citizens here is much greater. And, I wonder what would happen to any growers who were caught employing illegal labor from Central America. I wouldn't doubt that they're tempted, since they'd probably work for even less than $11 a day. Of course, Mexico and its citizens might take a different view of that type of activity than our elites do here.

Who does he think he's fooling? He just wanted cheaper labor, so he can get richer.

This practice of moving south of the border has been going on for a time. I bought some tomatoes the other day without looking at the label. Yup! You guessed it. Grown in Mexico. Mexico is producing a cheaper product to the wholesalers because somebody posted an article a while back about the asparagus growers in California. Because of the foreign markets in Latin America and Mexico, the California asparagus fields dropped from I think 45,000 acres to 15,000. So tell me, why do we need another guest worker program?

Good, let them work in Mexico. At least there they are not hurting our schools, bankrupting our hospitals, fueling the gang problem etc. I say buh bye.

And for the Scaroni character who built a $50 million business growing lettuce and broccoli in California's Imperial Valley by importing and exploiting illegals, we should send him a bill for all the costs his illegal workers undoubtedly threw onto the backs of American taxpayers.