ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE

August 19, 2007

Migrants among few willing to work on farms

Farmers say they'd hire U.S. laborers, too, but most Americans uninterested

Diana Louise Carter
Staff writer

Last month, local and federal law enforcers met with farmers to talk about how they're at odds over foreign farm laborers.

Once all government officials had introduced themselves, they asked the farmers to tell them what was on their minds.

A man from Mount Morris jumped up and said he represented all the native-born Americans who can't find work because of undocumented alien workers.

No one responded.

Local farmers and farming experts say it's a common misconception that illegal aliens are stealing jobs away from American citizens, at least when it comes to farm labor.

"We hire most anybody who wants to work," said John Teeple, a third-generation apple farmer in Huron, Wayne County.

But few locals apply.

"Many people think it's beneath them. It's too hard: 'I'm not going to stand in the sun all day long and break my back,'" said Sister Janet Korn, who works in migrant ministries in Sodus, Wayne County, for Catholic Charities.

"It's hard work, and there are some people who don't want to perform hard work," said Mark James, executive director of the New York State Farm Bureau's Finger Lakes office. "Farmers have certainly advertised. They either haven't had reliable help in the past from domestic labor or they just haven't found anybody."

The pay is not bad: $8.50 to $20 an hour, depending on the skills needed and, when piecework is offered, how quickly a worker fills a bin or basket with produce. But the work is seasonal and many people prefer the security of year-round jobs.

Farmers are quick to point out that they offer free or low-rent housing, but workers and advocates said this housing is often overcrowded — a three-bedroom trailer with 16 people in it, for instance, or a single house with 29 people sharing.

"In some cases, I would call it inhumane," Korn said.

Farmwork is also exempt from some protective labor laws, so workers are not guaranteed overtime or the right to organize.

Francisco Rosario of Medina, Orleans County, a farm laborer who has become a citizen, said some growers treat their help well, but "others look at the person in the field as a machine — that's all they are."

The conditions can be hard to believe for people who work indoors.

"We have people working in the fields where they don't have access to restrooms," noted Kate Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell University expert in changing corporate structures, including agribusiness.

Under these conditions, the question arises of why foreigners would want the work.

They have none in their own countries, Korn explained, saying U.S. price subsidies for corn and free trade agreements have undercut corn farming in Mexico.

"One in three tortillas (made and eaten in Mexico) is made with U.S. corn," she said.

But displaced Mexicans are not the first foreign farmworkers.

People from every wave of immigration have started in the fields and then left them as they learned to speak English so they could hold other jobs.

John Martini, owner of Anthony Road Wine Co. in Penn Yan, Yates County, said the vineyards used to be filled with Italian laborers, and now some of them or their descendants own the vineyards. The same may be true of Mexicans one day, he said, but many seem to just want to earn enough to feed their families and then go home.

Some Mexican laborers working in Orleans County recently said the work is hard but worth it.

"One hour of work here is a day of work in Mexico, and in Mexico, there is no work," said Abel Martinez Ortiz, 26, who was working on an Orleans County vegetable farm this summer.

By living frugally, he can send home several hundred dollars every two weeks.

Still, the racist treatment that Mexicans sometimes endure upsets Suri Sadai Roque, 26, who has been working on New York farms for a few months.

"When they sit at the table, they should think of us, planting and weeding and picking," she said. "They eat the fruits of our labor."