NYT/AP: Farms Facing Worker Shortage for Harvest

[DeepModem Mom]

Farms Facing Worker Shortage for Harvest
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 30, 2006

BATESVILLE, Texas (AP) -- J. Allen Carnes needed 200 workers for the onion harvest this year on 500 acres of South Texas fields. The onion business is big in the area, and with only two months to harvest, there's little room for delay.

But Carnes ended up with less than 100 workers and fell two weeks behind, with bits and pieces of the fields unpicked. His income fell about $150,000, a significant loss....

***

Growers say tightened border security and longer lines for day crossers have cut the numbers of farm workers who cross the border legally or illegally. Illegal immigrant workers who used to travel the country picking different crops as the seasons changed are hesitant to migrate for fear of being caught. And the lure of higher paid jobs with better working conditions, such as construction, are keeping some farm workers away.

And the labor shortage will only get worse until Congress tackles immigration reform, growers and worker advocate groups say. The House and Senate are at an impasse over proposed legislation and whether it should include an eventual path to citizenship and guest-worker program in addition to border enforcement....

***

Without comprehensive immigration reform, growers will continue to move their operations south of the border, said Tim Chelling, a vice president of the Western Growers Association....''It's more than anecdotal; we know that they're down there to the tune of thousands and thousands of acres,'' he said....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Immigration-Produce.html

[xchrom]

1. yup -- same problem here in cali.

[sam sarrha]

2. just pay people a decent wage.. last place i worked in ag was blueberrys

and you were doing good to make $15 or $20 a day... $20 was under rare and good conditons

[redphish]

3. There's NOT a shortage of workers,

there's a shortage of people willing to bust their asses for the pittance that they're willing to pay.

:grr:

[Thickasabrick]

4. "His income fell by $150,000" - that's 3 times the average

salary for americans. Sounds like a greedy republican.

[w4rma]

5. He should have used some of that $150K to offer higher wages.

The picking season isn't year round. $150K would go a *long* way towards wages.

[Nictuku]

6. Keep in mind

Keep in mind how much we trust the MSM these days, and a so-called 'shortage of workers' would support the pro-slavery position of the President.

I heard a report on my local Pacifica station which opened my eyes a bit. The main point that stuck with me is that farmers do not wait to the last minute to discover they have no one to work their crops. Were this true, we would have heard about it long before now. The (hispanic) person they were interviewing said that these stories we are seeing in the papers are manufactured, maybe a farm or two here or there, but the claim that there are not enough workers on a large scale is false.

I wish I could find a link for this info, but for now I'm going to take what the MSM says with a grain of salt.

It is far more likely that since migrant workers can not come here to work the harvest season, and then go back to Mexico on off seasons as they used to, that they are seeking non-seasonal work.