DAYTONA BEACH NEWS-JOURNAL

February 21,  2010

Growing in Obscurity

Hispanic fernery owners try to break free of migrant cycle, but many face a tough road

By FRANK FERNANDEZ
Staff Writer

PIERSON -- Consuelo Arellano, wearing a jacket to shield herself from the cold, stoops and clips another tree fern. She holds the clippers in a hand protected by a cloth glove, reinforced with patches of duct tape along her knuckles.

The unusually frigid Florida winter has virtually freeze-dried many of the taller ferns, which were ready to pick but now stand brown and brittle above the green field.

"All of these are burned," she said in Spanish as her hand sweeps across the field. "They are not good for anything."

Arellano is a minority in northwest Volusia County's fern business. While most Hispanics toil for someone else, she and her husband also toil for themselves, as owners of a modest 5-acre field of ferns.

But Hispanic fern growers like the Arellanos must deal with issues foreign to their Anglo counterparts, such as discrimination and agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which sometimes don't even know Hispanic growers exist, one advocate said.

But there they were: About 15 Hispanic fern growers packed a meeting room on a recent Saturday evening at the Farmworker Association of Florida office in Pierson.

"I was not aware of all these people," said Kathleen DeFord, county executive director of the USDA.

DeFord said that since she didn't know about them, their crop losses were not included when she compiled information on the freeze damage. Now that she knows, DeFord said she will have the department send the Hispanic growers a newsletter in Spanish to keep them informed.

"We are going to work very hard to help these people and get them in the system," she said.

DeFord's perspective seems to reflect a broader sentiment at the federal agency. On Thursday, the USDA announced it had reached a $1.25 billion settlement agreement with African-American farmers who said they were discriminated against by USDA loan programs. Congress must still appropriate the money for the settlement.

"The USDA under the Obama Administration has made civil rights a top priority, which is why we are working to implement a comprehensive program to take definitive action to ensure all farmers are treated fairly and equally and move USDA into a new era as a model employer and premier service provider," according to a statement to The News-Journal on Friday from Caleb Weaver, press secretary for the USDA in Washington, D.C.

NO INSURANCE

The new era may not help the Hispanic fern growers gathered in Pierson on that Saturday night. DeFord asked the group to raise their hands if they had crop insurance. No hands went up. Most said they didn't even know crop insurance was available. A few said they knew but couldn't afford it.

DeFord explained that if they qualified, they could get the insurance at no charge. The insurance would have only covered losses above 50 percent of their crop, and it pays up to $250,000 per crop for a maximum of three crops. Different types of ferns are considered different crops, she said.

It's unclear how many Hispanic fern growers work in Volusia County. The Farmworker Association estimates 400 operate in Volusia and Putnam counties. But a county extension agent puts the number of Hispanic fern growers in Volusia County at about a dozen.

Only two of those operations are 25 acres or more, said Dana Venrick, the agent at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. There are no fern growers in Flagler, according to Mark Warren, agricultural extension agent.

Regardless of the number, Hispanic fern growers have suffered discrimination at the hands of government agencies, said Tirso Moreno, general coordinator of the Farmworker Association of Florida in Apopka.

"There has been a lot of discrimination," Moreno said. "They think Hispanics can only be workers, and when some have gone to seek aid, they are told they don't qualify, without anyone asking them anything."

Moreno said the discrimination can take other forms. Hispanics don't have the information they need to qualify for programs, such as low-interest loans, Moreno said.

"They don't give them access to programs," he said. "They do not get access to credit."

Moreno said his information is anecdotal from conversations with Hispanic farmers and farm workers in Volusia and Putnam counties and elsewhere.

Moreno praised DeFord for taking the time on a Saturday night to meet with Hispanic fern growers.

Mark Carlton, district director for the USDA Farm Service Agency, wrote in an e-mail Friday that he is unaware of complaints against the Farm Service Agency but he would address questions if he receives specifics allowing him to investigate.

"USDA has a nondiscrimination policy in place and all employees are expected to follow it," Carlton wrote.

MORE HISPANICS ENTER FARMING

More Hispanics are entering agriculture as Anglo producers die off or retire and their families decide they don't want to follow them into agriculture, Moreno said. The majority of Hispanic farm owners are small producers who don't have the money to invest to grow, he said.

One of those small producers is Jose Martinez, who owns 3 acres in Crescent City. He is from Guerrero state in Mexico but has lived in DeLand for the past 30 years.

On a recent day the 55-year-old Martinez was part of a crew clearing someone else's fern field off U.S. 17 in Pierson. The freeze decimated the field of leather leaf ferns, and Martinez was picking through the remains, looking for green sprigs amid the brown plants and black dirt. Most of the crew members draped black plastic around their legs to keep the dirt off their clothes.

Martinez held up a soil-covered stem and with his finger tapped its green tip.

"Only these can be saved," he said. "Most are spoiled. They are no good."

Martinez bought his acreage about three years ago hoping to become his own boss and generate a steady income to help buy things like shoes and clothes for the four sons still at home, ages 2, 6, 12 and 16. But it's been tough. He had been tending the land, fertilizing it, expecting his first harvest this year. Then the temperatures trampled it.

"I thought it would be a better life, but from what I see it's going to be impossible," Martinez said.

HARDER PATH

With only uncertainty growing in their own fields, many must look for other jobs. But jobs are hard to come by now.

"There's little work," Martinez said. "Sometimes you work one day or two days per week. Sometimes nothing."

And when there is work it's back-breaking and low-paying. Consuelo Arellano must bend down and collect 25 tree ferns to make a "bonche" or bunch. She makes 30 cents a bunch, so it will take 100 bunches to make $30.

Then there are the rattlesnakes, most common in the summer. Consuelo Arellano said she was cutting ferns once and heard a hissing sound and thought it was a turtle. It wasn't. She turned and found a large rattlesnake. Fortunately it did not bite her.

Arellano, 41, and husband Guillermo, 54, have been working in the fern fields since moving to Volusia County in 1983 from Guerrero state. The couple have lived in Pierson for 20 years and said they decided to become fern growers after getting a good deal on the land.

But Hispanic fern growers draw suspicion from some, she said.

"Sometimes people say, 'How did they buy that land?' " Consuelo Arellano said. "But we know that we always worked very hard (for another fern grower) and we didn't take trips nor waste our money. Everything we did spend went toward our kids."

Their field supplements what they make working in other growers' fern fields. When there is no work for someone else they can always work for themselves. They have five children at home to care for, three daughters -- 11, 12, and 17 -- and two boys, 6 and 7.

Like with other small business owners, the satisfaction of being their own bosses comes with caveats.

"If I don't find someone to buy the plants they go to waste and I don't make any money," she said.

The recent return of frigid temperatures this month was another cold slap this winter after January freezes.

"It's real cold," she said. "The weather doesn't want to improve. Every time it gets cold, we get more dried plants."