8/25/2012

To use H-2A labor the farmer has to pay the transportation cost from the person's home country and back to their home country after the season is over, plus provide a decent place to live near the work site. They end up costing more than the farmer can pay.


Visa program costly

Some growers have tried to use the H-2A visa program to import documented workers into the U.S. to help out.

One major avocado grower in San Diego County, Jerome Stehly, tried to go through the H-2A program this year. But he became so frustrated with its high cost, legal fees and housing and transportation expenses, that he's said to have scrapped it, according to several sources familiar with his use of the program.


. . . For instance, a farmworker can earn up to $16 an hour for harvesting 30-32 baskets of mushrooms, Ramirez said.
Why is there a shortage of workers?
"I have no idea.
We've advertised in local church bulletins, El Latino (a 60,000 circulation, Spanish-language weekly newspaper in San Diego), and we can't get anyone," Ramirez said . . .

http://www.alipac.us/f12/agriculture...-crops-263125/