Farmers seek help fixing labor shortage

By AARON NELSEN/The Brownsville Herald

BROWNSVILLE - Over the years Curtis DeBerry has slowly shifted operations of his Rio Grande Valley-based Progresso Produce LTD to Mexico.

Twenty years ago the company - which grows onions, watermelon, limes and honeydews, to name a few - had 70 percent of its operation in the Valley and 30 percent in Mexico.

Today those percentages have virtually flipped, and recent worker shortages have forced DeBerry to reduce the local operation even further - nearly a 25 percent reduction over the last three years, by his estimate.

"We struggle every day with labor shortages," said the owner of Progresso Produce LTD, "and I don't foresee it getting any better any time soon."

DeBerry is hardly alone in the Valley.

Farmers have attempted in recent months to convey a struggling industry plagued by labor shortages to congressional representatives from the Texas-Mexico border and the need for comprehensive immigration reform to tap into an able and willing supply of workers.

But as they tried to sway opinion, the question of exactly how many workers were needed would invariably arise.

To get a handle on the situation, the nonprofit trade associations Texas Citrus Mutual and Texas Vegetable Association requested that the Center for North American Studies at Texas A&M University develop a report that would provide a snapshot of Texas' industry.

DeBerry was among a group of 139 fresh fruit and vegetable producers and packers surveyed in February and March.

While the response rate was a mere 28 percent, the report found that nearly 66 percent of respondents claimed to have faced labor shortages during the past two seasons and 77 percent said they had reduced the size of their business because of a lack of employees.

Since 2005, the harvested area of spring onions has plummeted from 15,500 acres to 9,500 acres, representing a 39 percent loss.

As a result some firms said they planned to move some of their operations to Mexico, if they hadn't already.

The findings are troubling for farmers as they head into the peak harvest months of May and June, according to Ray Prewett, president of Texas Citrus Mutual.

"It's not about cheap labor," Prewett said. "It's a matter of finding people willing to do the work."

There are a variety of reasons for the shortages, Prewett explained. The domestic workforce is aging - farmers reported that 58 percent of their work force is older than 35 - and high employee turnover has taken its toll.

And many younger workers are simply steering away from the fields and packinghouses, opting instead for jobs in construction or retail.

The apparent gap and acute need for workers to resuscitate a shrinking industry is argument enough for comprehensive immigration reform, according to the Texas Citrus Mutual and Texas Vegetable Association.

Already a sizable portion of the labor force is from Mexico.

Currently, 51 percent of field operations and 41 percent of packing operations is Mexican.

"The odds are very good that the person picking in the field is illegal," said John McClung, president and CEO of the Texas Produce Association. "People I work for know it, but there's nothing they can do about it."

That's because there is nobody else to do the work, McClung added.

One piece of legislation on the table is the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act, known as AgJOBS. It addresses the agricultural immigration crisis and has gained support from the agricultural industry and farm workers.

Its main parts, an earned legalization program and revisions to the existing H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program, would go a long way to filling vacancies, proponents say.

In place of sweeping reform, which farmers fear could be a long way off, a border-crossing alternative to address the immediate needs of farmers in the Valley would suffice, they say.

However, if the problem is not addressed soon farmers will have to make some difficult decisions, according to McClung.

"I don't have to be delicate about this," McClung said. "The choices are simple. If the industry can't find workers, (farmers) can start growing something else, get out of business or move to Mexico, and that's increasingly what's happening."