AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION NEWS February 6, 2006
Availability of workers increasingly O ne California farmer's $50,000 loss this harvest season as a result of a labor shortage for a single crop is only the very tip of the iceberg lettuce, according to an economic analysis by the American Farm Bureau Federation. AFBF estimates that legislative efforts to crack down on illegal immigration could cause up to $9 billion annually in overall losses to the U.S. agriculture industry and losses of up to $5 billion annually in net farm income, if not coupled with temporary worker reforms. "The agriculture industry is unique in that we are highly dependent on temporary foreign workers to fill jobs that most Americans do not want to perform," said AFBF President Bob Stallman. "Many family farms depend on temporary labor and could not sustain the impact of net farm income losses brought about by current immigration proposals." Jack Vessey, an Imperial County, Calif., vegetable grower, has already felt the pinch of the labor shortage this harvest season, which runs November through March. "Right now, we're short of cauliflower crews," Vessey said. "At the beginning of the year, when we started harvesting, we were basically 30 percent short every day. "The cauliflower just got left in the field, on a good market, because I didn't have people to harvest it." Vessey estimates that shortage resulted in a $50,000 loss for his operation. Ideally, Vessey would employ approximately 500 workers to harvest his 8,000 acres of lettuce, spinach, broccoli and numerous other vegetables. On a national scale, of the 3 million workers the agriculture sector requires, approximately 2 million are drawn from farm families and about 1 million are hired from non-family sources. Hiring restrictions that would result from current immigration proposals would affect 500,000 or more of this 1 million. If a viable guest worker program is not incorporated into immigration reform, the fruit and vegetable sector as it now exists would disappear, according to AFBF. Up to one-third of producers--who are especially dependent on hired labor--would no longer be able to compete. Instead of stocking produce grown and harvested in the United States, America's grocers would increasingly fill their shelves with foreign-grown produce, resulting in billions of dollars currently kept in the United States being sent overseas. Vessey's concerns for his industry echo AFBF's assertion. "Are we going to be viable here?" he asked. "Or are we going to be making the transition to other countries? "There are large processors looking at central Mexico at this moment. There are also a lot of California processors who have already set up operations in central Mexico." "AFBF will not stand by while a significant segment of our industry is outsourced to foreign countries," said Stallman. "We will work vigorously for a sensible, balanced immigration bill that secures our borders, toughens sanctions on those who willingly violate the law and provides American agriculture with a viable guest worker program that maintains a vibrant sector of the American economy." With the House having passed immigration reform without reforming guest worker laws, AFBF and other stakeholders are turning their attention to the Senate, said Austin Perez, AFBF labor specialist. "Among the critical components of a viable program are the capability to handle large numbers of workers to ensure an uninterrupted supply and a gradual transition from the current setting to tighter restrictions on migrant workers," he explained. Reform that allows for the open market to determine wages and is flexible enough to meet agriculture's diverse needs should also be incorporated into a comprehensive approach to migrant labor, Perez said.
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