DeSOTO SUN-HERALD (Arcadia, Florida)

March 13, 2006

Farmworkers harvesting less income

Hurricane Wilma, harsh winter freeze make the harvest difficult for growers and workers

It's the time of year local farmworkers know as la cosecha.

It means the harvest. Usually this is peak picking time for citrus and vegetables, a time when farmworkers have the opportunity to make the most money.

But these aren't normal times. Southwest Florida's growers are still hurting from Hurricane Wilma and a freeze last month. The farmworkers share their pain.

"There is work for everyone," said Peter Routsis-Arroyo, president of Catholic Charities of Venice. "It's just not as much. The picking is down."

At a time when farmworkers usually work eight or more hours a day six days a week, many are finding only two or three hours of work a day. Routsis-Arroyo worries some won't make enough money here to migrate North this summer.

Already, Catholic Charities has seen more demand from farmworkers at its Guadalupe Social Services center in Immokalee. In March, the nonprofit normally gets five or 10 clients a day coming into the center for food and financial aid, such as help with paying water or electricity bills. Now it's seeing more than 30 in a day, Routsis-Arroyo said.

Because most farmworkers are illegal immigrants they are not able to qualify for unemployment assistance from state or federal agencies. So they have to rely on social service agencies, such as Catholic Charities, when they don't have enough work to pay their bills or put food on the table.

"Every time we do have a freeze or disaster it exposes the reality that agriculture is dependent on workers who basically don't have a social safety net to help them," said Rob Williams, director of the Migrant Farmworkers Justice Project for Florida Legal Services. "That is one of the many reasons why I think immigration reform is so essential."

The Redlands Christian Migrant Association (RCMA) extended a hurricane relief program for migrant families that it started in January because it continued to see such a huge need for it. But the program, which was providing a bag of food and help with utilities and rent to 200 families in Immokalee every week, has run out of money.

"People are scrounging for work," said Barbara Mainster, RCMA's executive director. "It's definitely not a booming harvest."

Southwest Florida is known as the winter vegetable capital of the nation. Citrus is also big. The agricultural industry in Southwest Florida employs as many as 15,000 seasonal and migrant farmworkers, with most making $10,000 or less in a normal year. About 30 percent of Immokalee's jobs come from agriculture.

When Hurricane Wilma hit Collier County on Oct. 24, it flooded vegetable fields, blew over citrus trees and knocked fruit to the ground. The Category 3 storm arrived as the harvesting season was about to get under way -- walloping Immokalee's agriculture-driven economy.

As local growers had just begun to harvest crops they replanted after the hurricane, a freeze hit Feb. 14.

While damage from the frost could have been much worse in Southwest Florida, it still caused millions of dollars in damage to local crops. Beans, corn and melons took the hardest hit. They are the most susceptible to a frost or freeze because the plants are so tender.

Tomato plants fared better. But some growers still lost 10 percent to 15 percent of their crop with the frost.

Rich Levine, owner of Immokalee Produce Shippers, a tomato grower and packer, said he has less work to offer than he did a year ago, mostly because of the hurricane.

The grower lost virtually all of the 350 acres of tomatoes and other winter vegetables it had in the ground to Wilma. With the scarcity of young plants, Levine wasn't able to replant all the acreage.

Though the freeze didn't damage citrus crops in Southwest Florida, local growers are still dealing with the aftereffects of Wilma.

Avan Lavra, area coordinator for the Florida Farmworkers Association, said some citrus harvesters are only working two days a week and only for two or three hours a day. With the cut in hours, they're only making $20 to $27 a day, he said.

While many farmworkers are struggling to find enough work, there are growers who say they don't have enough people to harvest their crops.

The hurricane and the freeze didn't hurt every grower equally -- and some growers have recovered better than others.

Gargiulo Inc., one of the largest tomato growers in Collier County, quickly replanted and has recovered from the hurricane. It saw little damage from the freeze.

The grower is down about 100 workers from this time last year. And the harvest is a week ahead of schedule because the weather has been so warm and dry over the past few weeks.

"I need more people. I don't know about anyone else," said Tim Nance, Gargiulo's director of operations in the eastern United States.

Nance suspects fewer workers are in town because they've been pulled to the Gulf Coast, where they're involved in clean-up work in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, or to other jobs here or elsewhere in the state.

Luis Cajiao, who does farmworker outreach for the Career and Service Center in Immokalee, said he has heard from crew leaders that some farmworkers have moved into construction because they couldn't find enough work in the fields.

In construction, there's plenty of work to go around in Southwest Florida.

As farmworkers find other job opportunities, it might be hard for growers to lure them back when they're needed.

"Growers may face having to make their jobs more attractive by offering higher wage rates," said Ray Gilmer, public affairs director for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.