http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060814/ap_ ... pty_fields

Organic farmers hit by worker shortage

By JULIANA BARBASSA, Associated Press Writer Mon Aug 14, 10:01 AM ET

WATSONVILLE, Calif. - For every fragrant bunch of parsley that foreman Eber Diaz picked, he stopped to rip out handfuls of thick-stemmed weeds crowding the crop.

Normally, these fields would be weed-free and workers would move easily up and down the rows, harvesting organic vegetables and herbs meant for dinner tables around the country. But increased patrolling along the border with Mexico, and easier, higher-paying jobs in the city have made farmworkers scarce.

Farms across the country are feeling the pinch, but organic farms like Lakeside Organic Gardens in the lush Pajaro Valley that grow labor-intensive, hand-picked crops are especially suffering. Fields go untended, and acres have to be torn up because there's no one to harvest them.

"It's heartbreaking," farmer Dick Peixoto said.

Farmers like Peixoto readily admit their reliance on immigrants, legal or not, and they're watching Washington's border crackdown with apprehension.

More than half the nation's approximately 1.8 million farmworkers are here illegally, though growers in California believe the percentage here is probably much higher.

The situation is so bad Peixoto has been forced to tear out nearly 30 acres of vegetables, and has about 100 acres compromised by weeds. He estimated his loss so far to be about $200,000 — worse than anything he's seen in his 31 years of farming.

Growers check documents provided by prospective workers to the best of their ability, all the while knowing that fakes are easy to find and that the industry couldn't make it without the labor of undocumented workers.

This dependence on immigrant labor has turned farmers into strong advocates of immigration reform. They're pushing hard for a program that would allow guest workers to enter the country legally to work with employers who are waiting, as spelled out in one of the proposals that's stalled in Washington.

"The government says we have to get rid of these undocumented workers, but they don't have an answer for us," Peixoto said. "How are we supposed to do this?"

Traditional farmers — even growers of delicate, hand-picked crops like the berries of the Pajaro Valley — can get by with up to 20 percent fewer workers.

Their crops might hang on the vine a little later, and they might have to shell out extra cash to keep workers in the field longer. But at least they can wipe out the weeds with chemicals, and focus their work force on harvesting and other tasks that can't be put off.

Conventional farmer John Eiskamp hired 320 workers for the harvest at his 180-acre raspberry and blackberry farm. He could have used an extra 30 to 50 workers, but made do by paying workers to put in 12- or 14-hour days for weeks during the peak of harvest, and postponing trellising, weeding and covering the plants.

The work is "delicate, labor intensive, and very time consuming," he said. "It's a challenging industry even without labor shortage and heat waves."

With stiff competition for workers, organic growers face the extra challenge of trying to lure workers to do particularly backbreaking tasks. Members of Diaz's crew were bending at the waist to pull weeds by hand, a task that needs to be done several times during the growing season. And harvesting is done the same way.

"No one wants to do this work," Diaz said. "I've never seen a situation where it was so difficult to find people."

The labor shortage is a serious problem, and it's getting worse as the government adds more law enforcement to the border without creating avenues for workers to come in legally, said Tim Chelling, spokesman for Western Growers, which represents about 3,000 fruit and vegetable farmers.

Some growers are moving parts of their operations to Mexico; others, like Peixoto, who have invested years in getting their land clear of chemicals so they can grow organically, are having to tough it out, he said.

"We need the workers; they need the work," he said. "We just need to figure out some way to make this happen for everyone."

I posted this because it can hit on a whole variety of issues here:

--The unintended consequence of the minimum wage. When there's a labor shortage, jobs like these can be tough to fill, and the industry dependent on such labor suffers because of it.

--The ridiculous nature of cutting off immigration. If there's something for people to do here that no one else wants them to do, then let them to it! Sure beats getting desperate and turning to crime to live.

--The big factor impeding organic food's success is the price. Such problems as these will make the market scarcer and the price gap will continue to widen. There's definitely a market out there for organic food, but how far are most consumers willing to dig into their wallet?

I'm not sure exactly how the guest worker program is set up, but I like the idea of periodically reviewing what type of work needs to be done in the US and who wants to come here to determine who and how many immigrants are allowed in each year (regardless of their nationality).

The agriculture industry as a whole, whether small scale or large scale farms, can not be in support of the immigration policies being discussed. It would have a huge impact on the prices of food in general in this country.

Robots, motherf**ker, robots.

i have an issue with this part. noone is saying cut off immigration. what most people are saying is do it legally, something thats totally different

Around here there are lots of "pick your own berries" farms that do extremely well. Couldn't that be done to some degree on these farms as well? It beats letting the crops go altogether.

I'm all in favor of workers coming here and "doing the work that Americans won't do", but they need to be registered imo.

How well that works usually depends on the product, the type of people who are interested in it, and their proximity to the product itself. It's pretty hit and miss.

Too bad there isn't some way of creating a robotic machine that could do the work for us instead of relying on people. Like how cars and electronics are built completely by hand... those industries would take off if only there were some way to automate things... like some kind of computational processor... Nevermind. CSI is on.

It's better to use Mexican slaves anyway, they are cheaper and don't need oil, and deserve jobs too. And hell, we can't let what happened to the blacksmiths happen to anyone else.


http://www.coxwashington.com/reporters/content/reporters/stories/BC_GUESTWORKERS_TECH31_COX.html

http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=1138_0_5_0

If there indeed is a market for organic food products, does not the onus of trying to keep such a market viable fall on the producers of organic products and not the government? If labor is scarce, one would think that the producers would need to find ways to improve effectiveness and efficiency sans large amounts of labor. What about a level of automation? Surely the most creative among the producers have thought of something along those lines. Why not think of ways to evolve the industry rather than remain set in its obviously inefficient ways?



I would recommend that it is the farmers themselves who should know best on how to adapt to changes, and not the government. Those closest to the industry have the most expert opinion, and relying upon a government whose own track record for efficiency is woeful is a poor choice. The best farmers will find ways around labor shortages and succeed where others fail. That is the nature of the free market. In the end, it will yield the most efficient and best result for the consumer, which is an organic product at a competitve price. The same sort of approach may be of benefit for traditional farmers as well. The injection of ingenuity and innovation to counter the loss of protectionist policies may indeed move the entire agricultural industry forward in this country and globally (I see genetically-modified foods as an example of a step forward). Granted, some will fail, but those who succeed will provide a new paradigm for others to follow. For those who lament the failure of some farmers, I would ask if it were better to give tax dollars to bad farmers who would continue to stagnate progress or let them leave the industry and try something they may succeed at? Such a policy would benefit the agriculture industry by allowing the best to succeed and move forward as well as shifting those not cut out for farming into other sectors of work. It would also decrease government investment in failing propositions.

If they're here legally, you have to pay them minimum wage.

Right, hence the unintended consequences.

The argument made here is that labor has become artifically scarce via the gov'ts restriction of the labor market.

As far as automation goes, remember that one of the staples of organic farming is to not use certain techniques that can be perceived as damaging to the environment.

Point taken, and I can agree with you on that. I think I was looking at the viability of the organic market in the long term. If the sticking point is labor, then the producer must find ways to be as or more effective without traditional forms of labor (in this case, undocumented workers). I think we have to unfortunately realize that the government is never going to cease meddling with labor, so any means to supplant its importance while still maintaining an acceptable level of production should be looked upon as advantageous on the part of the producers (and ultimately consumers as well). You are correct that the best scenario is to limit the government involvement that artificially created the labor shortage, but while that is important, it is also equally important to improve the production means of the industry (sans copius low-wage labor) overall as well. In other words, it is insurance for when the government is less enlightened than you and I.



Indeed. All the more reason to look for ways of automation that have the least impact on the environment. The trick would be to find methods that impact less than the cost of trafficking undocumented humans across borders that are secured with millions of tax dollars, treating the health problems of said workers living and laboring in harsh conditions, and the countless other environmental and economic impacts of using such labor (fuel, food, fuel to supply food, transportation, housing....all can have far more negative environmental impacts than a highly efficient automated technology). I do not think that many people understand that the use of human labor, especially aliens, has an enormous impact on the environment (albeit indirectly) as well as the economy (indirectly as well). What most people see is the direct results: cheap labor and no exhaust! But it goes much deeper than what meets the eye. The problem, of course, is no one has come up with such a device or idea to shift the way agriculture produces. Part of what is preventing that from happening, in my opinion, is that there is little incentive to do so on the part of the producers. Whether it is using/abusing cheap labor or looking for government hand-outs when practicing less-than-efficient farming (i.e., failed businesses), there has not been any motiviation to improve farming practices on the part of many of these growers. It is a very "anti-market" way of thinking.

I enjoy the topic, but far be it from me to have all the answers to it. Truth be told, I'm still looking myself.

Welcome to my list of ten favorite posters in N&D, you evil pig-dog.

So basically what your saying is, it's wong for republican CEO owners to undercut wages and abuse human resources in textile mills, steel factories, and automotive plants. But's alright for hippies to exploit labor by making people pick weeds out of fields in the blazing sunshine so that other hippies can have their "organic" food at effective costs.

I gotchya.

It never fails to amaze how not correcting the wrongs of yesterday implicitly means that we cannot correct them now.

Call me insane, but I don't think we'll ever see robots picking crops. It would require technology both to allow the machine the mobility required to pick plants and to allow the machine to determine what plants should be picked, where they should be grasped, etc. It's something that would be difficult both mechanically and programmatically to accomplish, and would take an enormous investment. When all that's said and done, the machine, which the sensors and other mechanisms it would require to operate, will probably end up costing more than a human slave.

Machines could very easily and economically handle tasks like sorting vegetables, moving them around, etc., but there are certain tasks that humans are designed for. If humans aren't meant to do the work that evolutionary mechanisms clearly designed them for, what are they supposed to do?

Mexicans are short and low to the ground, and therefore evolutionarily designed to pick peppers.

Human bodies are little more than organic machines. I tend to agree with the poster who said that w/o a financial motive, the machines will never be developed.

S_D, you are incorrect to assume a completely automated system is whats needed or being suggested. A human could look at an image of an apple tree and select which fruit should be picked (often called 'targetting'). The image could be a composite showing the size, temperature, denisty, color of the apple, etc. I believe the system would allow better choices than just a 2 second glance at the fruit. It could also be run at night or whenever the weather is optimal w/o relying on human labor availability.

It may be difficult for a machine to pick things like berries, right now, but the development of machines for harvesting other crops would not only establish a more viable automation market, it would also increase research and innovation. The only thing that really stands in the way is same thing that is always blocking our society from moving forward... the imperial federal government.