IDAHO STATEMAN

November 6, 2006

Labor shortage costs Valley fruit growers thousands of dollars

Industry says heated talk about illegal immigration scares off workers

Bob Gonzales doesn't like how the 2007 harvesting season is shaping up for Treasure Valley fruit growers, who he says have just endured the worst migrant labor shortage in recent memory.

Gonzales says area fruit farmers lost hundreds of thousands of dollars during this fall's fruit harvest as portions of their crops withered on the vine when growers couldn't find their usual complement of migrant farm workers.

"It was horrible. We were either going out daily trying to find people, or we were begging Job Service to send people out here," said Gonzales, a sales agent for Snake River Fruit Growers, which grades, packages and markets fruit produced at farms in the Sunny Slope region of Canyon County. "And it's putting us in trouble for 2007."

Growers put the blame for the labor shortage — at least partially — on calls earlier this year for tougher enforcement of the nation's immigration laws. An unintended consequence, they say, was that a large portion of their fruit-picking work force was scared off.

"It was the worst (labor shortage) I've ever seen," said Kelly Henggeler, former president of the Idaho Apple Commission. "And I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg."

The problem was not limited to Idaho. In California, the farm labor shortage reportedly hurt the grape harvest in the San Joaquin Valley and the tomato crop in the Imperial Valley. Portions of the strawberry crop went unpicked in Oregon, while Arizona's lettuce production was down.

Alice Whitney former board secretary for the Nampa-based Hispanic Business Association, said the U.S. is witnessing the economic backlash generated by the harsh rhetoric associated with the immigration debate.

"They (the workers) feel like they're hated and not appreciated for the work they do," Whitney said. "So now farmers are caught between a rock and a hard place."

According to a 2002 survey by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the most recent data available, 340 Idaho fruit, tree nut and berry farms accounted for $17.4 million in revenue that year — just 0.4 percent of the $3.9 billion generated by all farming operations.

"Canyon County and the Emmett area are the only two places with measurable fruit production. It's not much in terms of overall agricultural revenues. But it's huge in those two areas," said Boise State University professor Don Holley.

Ironically, Gonzales said area fruit growers were also victimized by a surging Treasure Valley economy, which led hundreds of migrant workers to trade $6.50-an-hour jobs in the fruit fields for $10-to-$12-an-hour jobs in construction, landscaping and hospitality.

But it was the fear that agents for Citizenship and Immigration Services would be searching the fields for illegal aliens that kept most farm workers away.

"There are less people trying to cross the border," said Raul Labrador, an Eagle lawyer and a Republican candidate for the Idaho House from District 14. "They're simply afraid."

Not surprisingly, with the midterm congressional elections looming this week, the farm labor shortage has taken on political implications.

"There's been an effort to politicize the issue," said Leo Morales of the Idaho Community Action Network. "In an election season, the talk has not been about (immigration) reform, but about how to deport people."

Contacted for this story, some Idaho candidates said 2006 offered proof that the nation needs a guest worker immigration program that would allow foreign farm workers to legally stay in the U.S. long enough to harvest the nation's crops. Spokesmen for other candidates did not return calls for comment.

The first signs

The labor shortage became apparent early in the season. Only about 200 of the 300 workers needed at the three farms serviced by Snake River Fruit Growers reported for work in June to begin picking cherries, the season's first crop.

It didn't take long for a bidding war to break out for qualified workers.

"One day we had 15 pickers just up and walk off when another employer offered them more money," Gonzales said. "Sometimes as little as 25 cents an hour can make the difference."

At one point, the fruit pickers who remained had to stop gathering cherries and rush to begin picking apricots, which must be packaged soon after being picked before they become over-ripe. Gonzales said the apricots were picked in time but were lost sitting in storage when there weren't enough people to work the packing shed.

"We lost 15,000 packages of apricots," Gonzales said. "At an average price of $16.50 a package, that means $247,000. We didn't get paid for those apricots, but we still had to pay to get them picked. So you can see what an economic loss that was."

At the 4,000-acre Symms Fruit Ranch three miles north of Marsing, where an estimated 400 farm laborers are needed to pick cherries, things were not much better, said orchard manager Jamie Mertz.

This year's harvest was saved when word reached migrant workers in other states that Idaho was sitting on a record cherry crop. Workers from as far away as California, Washington and Oregon were soon streaming into Idaho.

"If not for that, much of (the cherry crop) would have rotted on the trees," Mertz said.

At the Williamson Orchard near Marsing, the problem continued into the August apple-picking season.

With not enough people to harvest 150 acres of apples, owner John Williamson estimates that despite "taking everybody that we could find," up to 30 percent of his Gala apple crop was lost when the fruit began splitting open while still on the trees.

"We figure we lost about 3,000 boxes of apples, which contain about 80 to 125 apples each and sell for between $12 and $18 a box," Williamson said. That would place the loss at between $36,000 and $54,000, depending on the price.

A political football

The shortage of migrant workers did not come as a surprise.

Idaho growers approached Republican Sen. Larry Craig almost a decade ago with their fears that the nation's immigration laws would eventually leave them without a work force, said Craig spokesman Dan Whiting.

"It's sad to see that their predictions have come to pass," he said.

Whiting said Craig managed to include a guest worker program in immigration legislation that passed the Senate earlier this year. The bill died when the House failed to act on immigration reform.

Some Idaho politicians are also weighing in on the issue.

Democrats Jim Hansen and Larry Grant, running for the U.S. House, want to allow migrant workers to enter the country legally, work the annual harvest, and then return home.

"Clearly the immigration system has broken down," said Hansen, who is trying to unseat incumbent Republican Rep. Mike Simpson in the 2nd District, which covers eastern Idaho and a portion of Boise east of Cole Road. "All it's doing is creating an incentive to work without legal documentation."

Campaign officials for Simpson and Republican Bill Sali, who faces Grant in Idaho's 1st District in western Idaho, did not respond to requests for comment.

"I believe that we should protect our borders," said Mertz, orchard manager at Symms Fruit Ranch. "But a lot of these workers have spent a lot of years trying to become legal. If they want to come here and work, they should be able to come here and have work permits."