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January 24, 2010
Freeze that killed crops leading to hiring freeze for farmworkers
By LAURA LAYDEN, TRACY X. MIGUEL Alfredo Ladra
Trejo only worked one day last week picking tomatoes in Immokalee. A crop-killing
freeze hasn’t just hurt growers. Across “There are a lot
of people who stayed without a job,” Trejo, 36, said in Spanish. He said all the
tomatoes at DiMare — where he works — froze, leaving farmworkers without
jobs for weeks. New tomatoes may not be ready to pick until mid-March. It’s the same
story at other tomato and vegetable farms across the region. At a time
when harvesting is usually in full swing, there’s very little produce
left to pick because of the devastating freeze on Jan. 11. Packing houses
that would be running five or more days a week are closed in Immokalee.
“They’re locked up,” said Gene McAvoy, a multi-county vegetable agent
with the That’s virtually
unheard of in Immokalee, known as the winter capital for tomatoes in the “The losses were
big and they were bad,” McAvoy said. In the five-county
region, grower losses are estimated at more than $147 million on seven
top crops: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, green beans, sweet corn, squash
and cucumbers. That translates
into about $23.7 million in lost wages for seasonal/migrant workers,
said Fritz Roka, an agricultural economist for the Farms and packing
houses in “For the first
couple of weeks there is still work to be done, as individual growers
figure out what they want to do. They have to clean up what’s there,”
Roka said. Some growers may
not replant, which will lead to more lost wages for farmworkers. Spring
crops that were already in the ground ahead of the freeze have been hurt
too. “Only time will
tell the extent of the damage and how it manifests itself,” Roka said. “We’re not
impacted like the vegetables are. We pretty much run six, seven days a
week,” said John Hoffman, a grove manager for Barron Collier Cos. in
Immokalee. Going into this
season, many farmworkers were already struggling because they lost work
after last year’s freezes. While those freezes weren’t as severe, they
still hurt crops enough to curb production. “They don’t have
big bank accounts,” McAvoy said of farmworkers. “They probably only have
a little bit of savings.” Since the freeze,
Trejo, who has been a farmworker for 19 years, said the farm he works
for was only hiring about half of its regular employees, which is about
50 at the height of season. “These days, since
I don’t have a family, I just live with the little amount of money that
I have,” Trejo said, adding that he eats less and continues to owe rent. D.C. McClure, vice
president of operations for West Coast Tomatoes, estimates his company
lost 800 acres of tomatoes with the freeze at two farms in Immokalee and
nearby Felda. He anticipates a $4 million loss in tomatoes that were
about to be harvested. On Wednesday
afternoon, there were no workers at the farm in Felda off State Road 29.
Normally, it would have been crawling with pickers. Instead, it was
filled with drooping brown plants and mushy green tomatoes. “We’re having to
tear down all these fields now,” McClure said. Clean-up will take
about 100 workers. Harvesting would have taken 200 to 300, McClure said. “I’ve never seen
as complete of a kill,” he said of the damage. “The freeze in ‘89 was
close, but not quite as bad.” Chuck Obern, owner
of C & B Farms in the Devil’s Garden growing area in “It’s going to be
terrible,” he said. He lost virtually
all of his fall and winter vegetable crops, including eggplant and
peppers. What he has left is his more cold-hardy crops, including herbs
and lettuce. His spring crop was more protected, so most of it should
survive. But it won’t be ready to harvest for weeks. With the local
economy so bad, there are fewer opportunities for farmworkers to find
jobs in other industries, such as tourism and construction. Some
farmworkers are going back to At “We’re not at full
capacity,” she said. “Usually this time of year we are.” Near the end of
last week, the dormitory — run by the authority — had 162 residents. “We don’t know
exactly where they go back to,” Serrata said. “We just know they leave
us.” She said if the
dormitory doesn’t get more residents, it will be difficult to cover the
bills, including paying off the debt. The authority has also seen
farmworkers move out of its family housing because they can no longer
afford the rent. Others who have stayed are falling behind on their
rent. For the past two
weeks, nonprofits in Immokalee have seen the demand for their services
surge. They need more food and cash donations to help farmworkers and
their families. At the “It has been
really, really overwhelming,” said Alicia Lindo-Hodge, a center
spokeswoman. The soup kitchen
is now serving twice as many people — about 400 daily — and has
increased its seating for lunch by as much as eight times. At about “The situation is
like when Wilma happened, they will be out of work for eight weeks, two
months,” said Ninfa Drago, director of Guadalupe Social Services. “So
now, we are serving over 100 families a day.” Since the week of
the freeze, Amigos Center de Immokalee has been helping more than 100
farmworkers with money for rent and food, said Gloria Hernandez, chapter
president of LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens). On Friday — a day
that the center is usually closed — it opened to give families donations
from the Harry Chapin Food Bank. Tricia Yeggy,
director of community programs at Immokalee Housing & Family Services,
said her charity is organizing a volunteer-based food distribution
program to help struggling families. “If we can put
some staples on the table we will be happy,” she said. “That will be
nice.”
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