A drought of farm labor

Imperial Valley lettuce farmer Jack Vessey says it's the worst in his lifetime. Farther north in California's Central Valley, orange grower Manuel Cunha calls it the most constrained since before World War II. Coastal tomato grower Luwanna Holmstrom constantly worries about a repeat of two years ago, when she had to plow under $2.5 million in tomatoes left unpicked.

California and Arizona farmers - producers of half the nation's citrus and 90 percent of its vegetables and nuts - are struggling with an acute labor shortage. The situation, worsened by crackdowns on illegal immigration since 9/11, also extends to other states and is no longer just a matter of possible price increases on lettuce, oranges, or almonds, farmers say. Rather, it is a turning point in the nation's ability to produce its own food - and possibly the loss of major parts of its agriculture industry.

"We are trying to sound the alarm without being alarmist, but the situation has become extremely serious," says Tim Chelling of the Western Growers Association, whose members grow, pack, and ship half America's produce. "We are now talking of losing the production of key commodities to foreign competition. America's produce industry is facing a crisis."

Although the shortage was worsening before 9/11, it's now extreme, Mr. Chelling and the three California farmers say. Without an emergency guest-worker program, they will be dramatically short of the minimum number of workers needed to harvest the current crop. Without long-term immigration reform that acknowledges America's reliance on foreign workers, farmers will not be able to make ends meet, they say.

Mr. Cunha, for example, says Central Valley raisin growers need 50,500 pickers and have only 15,000. In the last harvest, $150 million to $300 million in grapes were ruined because they could not be picked and laid out to dry before the period of necessary seasonal sunlight passed. This year predictions are worse.

Mr. Vessey began harvesting romaine, iceberg, and red-leaf lettuce Tuesday. He was 200 workers short. "I lost $250,000 because of this problem last year," he says. "This year I am concerned I could go under completely. If I miss making my contracts with some of the big stores, they could look to China, Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere, and even if I recover my labor later, it may be too late."

Even before 9/11, other industries from construction to hotels, restaurants, and domestic services were luring workers away from the difficult and temporary work of harvesting. Increased border enforcement, which began a decade ago but has been ratcheted up since 2001, has further reduced the labor pool. In fact, by tripling the border patrol in recent years, the back-and-forth traffic of illegals has become so problematic that instead of returning to Mexico, many have moved farther into America's interior in search of full-time work - leaving seasonal agriculture work behind. This year, construction booms in the West and Midwest, hurricane reconstruction in Florida, and post- Katrina cleanup in the Gulf have siphoned off even more undocumented workers.

Higher wages would help, critics point out. "The problem is that the agricultural industry has come to expect that they will have exactly the workers they need when they need them and at the price they want them, but that is not the way the economy works," says Ira Mehlman of the Federation of American Immigration Reform.

Furthermore, America is not getting the cheap labor it expects from undocumented workers because of the unseen cost of $10.5 billion spent a year for health, education, and incarceration of such workers, he says. "If you started factoring in all the costs associated with these low-wage workers, you would realize the cost of a head of lettuce is prohibitive in this situation."

"You always hear the argument that if we just paid decent wages and made these jobs open to legal Americans that the jobs would be filled," says Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers League. "We have found that to be completely not so."

Vessey says he offered $8.50 an hour but that some workers choosing to harvest "per carton" can average up to $12 per hour. But when he went recently to Imperial County's welfare and economic development department seeking 300 workers for the next day, only one showed up to his fields and left after half a day.

Do you understand elasticity-inelasticity?

You used gas as an example. Demand for gas is inelastic. Demand doesn't change with price. With the huge spike in prices caused by yhr gulf storms, demand fell matbe 2%.

With labor shortages the labor supply is inelastic. It doesn't make any difference if demand rises(wages increase), there is still no more labor available.

We import large amounts of oil. We import large amounts of labor.

With labor shortages the labor supply is inelastic. It doesn't make any difference if demand rises(wages increase), there is still no more labor available.

There is lots of underemployed illegal labor available. Communities all over the country are howling about these nuisance illegals standing around in front of 7-11's and Home Depots. These day laborers do not have steady work but they would rather be unemployed two or three days a week then work for these farmers in abusive conditions at slave wages. Unlike gasoline, we have never actually seen the farmers try raising wages so your assertions about wage inelasticity are untested.

There is also quite a lot of underemployed citizen labor. Much of this work used to get done by teenagers and I am sure, with the right wages they could be induced to do it again. I would not have a problem requiring welfare recipients to take these jobs if they were available but that would take some sensible legislative action.

My brother-in-law is a 'farmer' with a master's degree in agriculture. ... But when it comes to relatively delicate crops like tomatoes and strawberries there simply isn't an alternative.

Tomato farming is very automated and has been since the 60's when we ended the Bracero program. When we got rid of the cheap labor productivity and production went way up and the price dropped.

I don't know much about strawberries but grapes and raisins are among the most (illegal) labor intense crops farmed in California. And the farmers who raise grapes for wine and raisins are among the biggest whiners about the need for illegal labor. But in Australia where they don't have a ready source of cheap labor, they manage to make wine that is cheaper and as often as not better quality than ours that does not rely on labor intensive methods. They do the same with raisins. Despite all the whining, it turns out that automation is totally feasible.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I bet after we get rid of the illegals somebody figures out how to pick strawberries with a machine just like the Southerners figured out how to automate the cotton harvest when we got rid of the slaves. Otherwise strawberries will get more expensive. That won't be the end of the wold when we figure in all the money we will save by not having to subsidize the cheap labor.

I think if we catch these people with illegals in their workforce we should seize their assets and turn them over at auction to somebody with a business model that includes obeying the law

Dead on. Their ownership of that property is under law - who guarantees that right, the Mexican government? They expect the rest of us to respect all of the rights that protect them - private property, zoning laws that devalue their land as agricultural land (the Pajaro valley in California would be wall to wall subdivisions without that) so that their property taxes stay low, ordinary police protection against theft, vandalism, etc - but when it comes to them respecting the laws we have made that guarantee our ownership of the country, they break them with glee.

Why bother even chatting about it? Arrest them, take their land. They don't exist as little feudal serfdoms independent of the rest of the country. They are nothing but latter day slave owners, wannabe feudalists.

There is also quite a lot of underemployed citizen labor

I always crack up when I hear the OBL apologists babble that about "the labor shortage". In Santa Cruz County, CA, home to one of the largest concentrations of illegals in America (the entire town of Watsonville), they cry about the 3000 "homeless", and then propose more subsidized housing (everyone should move here and get their names on the list! Live on the Beach for free!). Those "homeless" could be out working in the strawberry patch, but nooooooo....that's beneath them.

Labor shortage my butt.

the farmers who raise grapes for wine and raisins are among the biggest whiners about the need for illegal labor

Gallo recently got into a world of hurt because a RUMOR leaked out that they were interested in a new grape harvesting machine that some company developed. They apparently wanted to move away from the unpredictable "foreign labor" market to a cheaper mechanized solution.

The response was immediate. Their fieldworkers striked, and the fieldworker union started talking to their glass plant and processing plant workers to shut the company down with a general strike. Gallo is still a family owned company and tries to maintain a certain "non-corporate" image, so they were forced to fold their cards and sign a contract guranteeing that they won't automate grape harvesting in order to avoid a hurtful, union-funded, media smear campaign.

If illegal labor was eliminated, the fieldworkers unions would default on their contract because they couldn't supply the labor needed to complete the harvest. If that happened, Gallo (and presumably other grape growers) would simply switch to the new mechanized harvesting equipment.

I have picked cotton, so I am familiar with that process. To pick it by machine you have to spray it with a defoliant, much like that used in Viet Nam. Most consumers would not be interested in eating tomatoes that had been sprayed with a defoliant. The year before I worked int he cotton fields I worked for a crop duster in southwest Alabama. I became quite familiar with cotton defoliant. It any of it gets blown onto neighboring crops it a serious problem, the sort of thing that result in big losses for the crop duster. Cotton is picked after it's fully developed on the plant and it is not particularly time sensitive unless it's gotten very wet and starts to mold. The mechanical process of picking cotton is not very efficient, a LOT of unpicked cotton is left on the plants and must be picked by hand. Cotton, soy beans, dried corn, hay, etc. are all crops that do not fit the description of 'truck crops'.

Truck farming is very time sensitive. The crop is delicate, in the case of tomatoes VERY delicate, and must be harvested at just the right time. I live in the strawberry capital of the world and during my time as news photographer I did quite a few assignments in the strawberry farming areas. It is a very risky crop. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too anything and your entire crop is lost.

I picked cotton one year (1960)in Yazoo City and Corinth Mississippi. It paid a nickel a pound as I recall. Very back breaking work! Lots of insects, not to mention having to spend the entire time bending over to reach the cotton.

I have also picked up pecans, taken watermelons to the market in New Orleans, worked 24 hour shifts in the cucumber shed and harvested potatoes. None of this work was done by hands when I doing the work while in high school. Some of it has probably changed by now.

Most consumers would not be interested in eating tomatoes that had been sprayed with a defoliant.

I imagine not. I remember when there was a huge outcry from pot smokers back in the late 70's when they learned that the DEA was spraying the defoliant paraquot on pot plants in Mexico. The Mexicans were picking it and selling it anyway.

But fortunately it is not necessary to spray defoliant on tomatos in order to automate the harvest. Here is an excerpt from a good article that talks a lot about the Bracero Program:

These predictions were wrong. Take the case of processing tomatoes. In 1960, 80 percent of the 45,000 peak harvest workers used to pick 2.2 million tons of the tomatoes used to make catsup in California were Braceros, and growers testified that "the use of Braceros is absolutely essential to the survival of the tomato industry." In 1999, about 5,000 workers were employed to ride machines to sort 12 million tons of tomatoes harvested by machine on 300,000 acres. In the tomato case, the end of the Bracero program led to the mechanization of the tomato harvest, expanding production, and a reduction in the price of processed tomato products, which helped to fuel the fast-food boom.

There Is Nothing More Permanent Than Temporary Foreign Workers

In 1960, 45,000 workers were picking 2.2 million tons of tomatos and and by 1999, 5000 workers were picking 12 million tons of tomatos. Roughly 1/10th the workers picked 6 times as many tomatos.

I went to college in Southern California and I remember seeing huge trucks full of green tomatos. My understanding is that they are picked green and are treated with cyanide gas to force them to turn red. That's almost as gross as defoliant but I eat them anyway.

>>>In 1960, 45,000 workers were picking 2.2 million tons of tomatos and and by 1999, 5000 workers were picking 12 million tons of tomatos. Roughly 1/10th the workers picked 6 times as many tomatos.

It is important to note that the case you present refers to processing tomatoes and not tomoatoes to be sold fresh. Processing tomatoes tend to not require the same degree of care as the fresh variety since they are mostly going to be crushed anyway.
Similarly, there are mechanical harvesters for grapes to be used in juice, but they don't work well for table grapes.
I'm not saying that it is impossible to mechanize all of this, but there are likely some crops that just do not lend themselves to mechanization.

re: reduction in the price of processed tomato products

I think the rub is going to be that consumers don't care what tomatoes look like that are being picked for "tomato products", but when it comes to buying whole ripe tomatoes from the produce department of their super market the damage done by mechanical harvesting is not going to be acceptable. Personally, I don't care how they look, it's how they taste! I love tomatoes, sliced and salted!

Please don't get me wrong. I am not an advocate of illegal labor. I prefer the direct cost of labor, or simply doing without, to what the illegal aliens cost us in so many other ways. At least with increased labor costs I can choose to not buy the product or service.

When I point out these considerations I am just saying that we should consider the law of unintended consequences! Nothing EVER works like it's supposed to!

Despite all the whining, it turns out that automation is totally feasible.

It's definitely feasible.

Raisins

Lee Simpson, a raisin grower near Fresno, is believed to have a vineyard of the future. Vines are planted five feet apart and with eight feet between rows, closer than traditional 12' by 8' spacing, and trained to grow across rows rather than parallel to rows.

The vines holding bunches of grapes are cut in August so that the raisins dry on the vine. Bunches of dried raisins are machine harvested with a beater bar knocking them onto a conveyor belt, a blower expels leaves, and the raisins go directly into boxes carried on the machine. This system eliminates almost 90 percent of the usual 80 hours an acre of labor needed in raisin harvesting.

Olives

Olives are the most costly tree fruit to harvest that is later processed. Ag-Right Enterprises of Madera [California] has developed a mechanical olive harvester that can harvest olives from trees that are pruned in a hedgerow fashion to produce a flat wall of trees. Hand harvesting costs about $300 a ton, and mechanical harvesting is expected to cost about $150 a ton; the machine is expected to cost $100,000.

Rural Migration News
http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=296_0_3_0

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