For farmers, inmates step in for migrants

THE GAZETTE

AVONDALE - The women bend at the waist between rows of green-topped onions, hacking at weeds.

At day’s end, their muscles will scream.

They’ll also be $4 richer — several dollars more than they’d get splitting wood or mopping floors at their prison.

That’s not the only benefit for this crew of 10 inmates from Pueblo’s La Vista Correctional Facility: “I get to see things grow instead of piddling around in the facility,” Lisa Richards said.

It’s also a good deal for Pueblo County farmers, who say Colorado’s get-tough-on-illegal-immigration stance scared away their laborers and left last season’s crops spoiling in the fields.

This year, Rep. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, brokered a deal to replace migrant workers
with a nearby abundant supply of cheap labor — inmates.

While farmers have welcomed the experiment as a Band-Aid that will keep them from going under, it’s met criticism from immigrants’ rights groups.

An untrained convict can’t do the same job that a skilled farmworker can, said Alisa Rosas, spokeswoman for United Farm Workers.

“The solution isn’t to bring in another work force we can exploit. What’s needed is immigration reform,” she said. “It just seems like we’re trying to solve a much bigger problem with a quick fix.”

Butcher doesn’t disagree, saying a long-term solution ought to include a state-controlled guest worker program so that Colorado can regulate its work force.

But crops can’t wait for politicians to figure it out, she said: “The farmers’ livelihoods are at stake.”

Farmers said they tried other channels, such as calling unemployment offices and advertising in newspapers but got nowhere.

In May, five farms placed their futures in the hands of 10 women convicted of nonviolent crimes and deemed unlikely to try to escape. The farmers pay $9.60 per day per inmate — $4 of which goes to the inmate. Through Butcher, they declined to say how much they paid farmworkers.

Tuesday — after six weeks during which the inmates learned the difference between plants and weeds and increased their speed from two rows to 10 a day — Butcher and Department of Corrections officials declared the program a success and said they will launch a second crew today.

Butcher also said she’s received calls from all over the country from those seeking guidance in dealing with similar issues, as well as from other Pueblo-area farmers who want help with their harvests.

It’s not clear how much the program will expand. DOC officials say they can provide a maximum of four crews from La Vista.

“That’s all we have that would qualify and would volunteer to come out and do the work,” said DOC spokeswoman Katherine Sanguinetti.

For inmate Kaedra Peterson, the money was the initial attraction. On average, inmates earn between 60 cents and $1.50 a day.

But the work is brutal, even compared with wielding a chain saw. They rise at 3:30 a.m., slather on 50-SPF sunscreen and are in the fields by 5:30 a.m. for a day in temperatures that can top 100.

“It’s backbreaking,” said Linda Buckham, who tapes her right hand to prevent blisters.

Their first day was agonizing; the prison officers joked that they could spot a crew member a mile away by the stiffness with which they moved. Some quit.

They also were slow and sometimes pulled up the wrong plant.

But they kept at it. “These gals are pretty tough,” said Patti Dionisio, whose family owns one of the participating farms.

Some, like Peterson, found they liked it. “I like being out here,” she said.

They’re also learning and can identify the weeds by name.

“Bindweed is the one they’re having the most struggle with. I appreciate now what my parents were trying to teach me,” said Buckham, who was raised on a farm in Kansas.

It’s also given her an appreciation for the farmworkers whose shoes they’re trying to fill. “I really have to give it to the immigrants,” she said. “Very, very few people will do this work.”