NORTH COUNTY TIMES
December 7, 2005
Local farmers fret over rising cost of wages
A growing labor shortage in California's agricultural industry has local farmers bracing for a tough ---- and expensive ---- winter harvest, farm industry officials and local growers said Wednesday.
Several factors are fueling the problem, they said, including: increased border enforcement that is reducing the number of illegal immigrants entering the county; growing competition from other industries, such as construction and hospitality; and the lack of a guest-worker program to allow undocumented immigrants to work legally.
Temecula Valley grape growers, who recently completed their harvest, have already felt the pinch, a grower in that area said this week.
"It is getting much tighter than in other years," said Mike Rennie, the owner of Leonesse Cellars winery and a vineyard in the Temecula Valley.
"We're having to pay people a couple of dollars more an hour," he said, adding that labor costs represent at least 50 percent of the cost of producing grapes.
He added that as a result, he and other growers will be forced to try to pass those increased costs on to consumers.
San Diego County Farm Bureau executive director Eric Larson said the winter harvest will soon begin for two of the biggest crops in North County ---- avocados and strawberries.
"That's when we are really going to find out what the situation is for North County," Larson said Wednesday.
Local citrus growers stand to be hit particularly hard should the labor shortage expand, he added. The citrus industry is already reeling from low commodity prices and water costs, Larson said.
"If citrus growers have to get into a bidding war for labor, they will not hire people," he said. "They will let their crops grow and it would push them to an early decision on whether to remain in business or not."
Fallbrook avocado grower Charley Wolk said Wednesday that the prospect of a bidding war for laborers has him weighing whether to start harvesting earlier than usual this year.
"I may make the decision to pick larger fruits earlier this year," said Wolk, who owns Beijoca Farm Management in Fallbrook and is chairman for Hass Avocado Board. "We are in that analysis mode now."
Another avocado grower in Fallbrook and Valley Center said this week that the labor shortage is already here for avocado growers ---- and it stands to get worse.
"We're seeing it now," said Bob Vice, who is also past president of the California Farm Bureau Federation. "By the middle of January, the labor shortages will be obvious to avocado growers, especially because that's when all sizes of the fruit will be picked and when much of the harvesting will be done."
A man who manages about 450 acres of vineyards in Temecula said Wednesday that if farm worker wages continue to go up, "pretty soon we won't be able to afford to farm grapes."
Temecula-based Stage Ranch Farm Management vineyard manager Billy Bower, who also works for Leonesse Cellars, said wages for farm workers have increased by about $2 an hour in the last year and now stand at about $8 an hour.
He said that until last year, local growers used to be able to drive by a local day-laborer hiring spot on Butterfield Stage Road and hire farm workers for about $50 for a nine-hour day of work.
"Now things have cracked down so much that you're forced to hire legals and no one will work for minimum wage," he said.
San Diego County Farm Bureau executive director Larson said that with increased enforcement along the border, many of the workers who would typically migrate back and forth from Mexico each year are being forced to remain year-round in the United States. Unable to return to their country once the harvest season is over, many of those workers have taken year-round jobs in other industries, such as construction or hotels, he added. And once they get full-time jobs, he said, few of those workers return to working in the fields.
"That's why the industry is pressing so hard for a guest-worker program," Larson said.
Like Larson, the California Farm Bureau Federation is also appealing to the federal government to authorize a guest-worker program.
Those appeals have intensified as Congress prepares to vote next week on a bill that boosts immigration enforcement but does not include a guest-worker provision. A policy being pushed by President Bush, however, calls for both increased enforcement of immigration laws, as well a guest-worker program.
In an interview with California Farm Bureau Federation publication AgAlert this week, the bureau's National Affairs Manager Jack King stressed the need for such a program and called for a defeat of the bill now before Congress.
"It is very important to us that we ... develop a viable ongoing guest-worker program," King said. "That is where we need the help of our members, to let Congress know what is at stake."
Immigration reform advocate and local farm industry executive Luawanna Hallstrom told the North County Times this week that the San Diego County farm industry is like a "sitting duck" when it comes to increased enforcement of immigration laws.
"Statistics have shown that 70 to 80 percent of ag laborers (here) are illegal or are fraudulently documented," said Hallstrom, who runs a vegetable farm in Oceanside and is on a committee pushing the government to ease restrictions on migrant workers.
"If we get enforcement only, employer sanctions and document inspections, they may find the 70 to 80 percent easily."
Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Arizona, is a leading proponent of a guest-worker provision.
"Enforcement alone will not work," he said, noting that border crossings continue to rise despite a tenfold increase in resources along the border. "(The current bill) also does not address the millions of people already here and living in the shadows."
Reached by phone Wednesday, Vartan Djihanian, district director for state Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, said that Morrow does not support the idea of a guest-worker program until all existing immigration laws are enforced.
Leonesse Cellars' Rennie said that while many people say that immigrant farm workers come to the United States and take away American jobs, that is simply not true.
"American workers are not willing to work these types of jobs for this type of pay," Rennie said. "Most young people (in this country) have never even held a shovel ---- Americans would not eat if they depended on other Americans to do farm labor."
But not everyone is unhappy with the shortage of agricultural workers.
On Wednesday, Mexican national Sixtas Onofre, 38, was working with another laborer in a Temecula vineyard, stringing wire to support grape vines.
Until seven months ago, he was earning $7 an hour. Now, he earns about $9 an hour, he said. Onofre said that he regularly sends money home to his wife and three children in the state of Michoacan, Mexico.
Now, "there's a little more to send home," he said.