Faced with a shortage of farmworkers to harvest their crops local farmers are supporting Sen. Diane Feinstein's latest proposal to overhaul the country's agriculture guest-worker program.
Feinstein's plan, called the "Emergency Agriculture Relief Act of 2008," would provide temporary limited legal immigration status to experienced farmworkers who must continue to work in agriculture for five years after enactment.
Workers, however, could not obtain legal permanent resident status (green cards), the program would be capped at 1.35 million workers nationwide and eligibility would be limited to those who can prove agricultural employment for at least 150 days or 863 hours or who have earned at least $7,000 working in agriculture during the 48 months prior to Dec. 31, 2007.
The plan would also require emergency workers to labor at least 100 days per year in agriculture for each of the next five years, pay a $250 fine plus processing fees and restricts them from receiving social security benefits based on prior illegal employment.
The changes are crucial, say agriculture employer groups such as the California Farm Bureau Federation, because with tight labor supplies, shortages over the past three years and stronger border enforcement to protect against illegal immigration, the state and country is in danger of further food product shortages and higher prices.
If Congress does not enact AgJOBS in the next five years - Feinstein's other proposed legislation introduced last year to help farmers meet the critical shortage of labor - the workers would have to leave the country or return to illegal status under her latest plan. Feinstein's proposal was expected to be reviewed by all parties supporting the changes to the program in the next few months.
At the same time, Congress has been working on its own revisions of the H-2A visa program, which allows farmers to seek agricultural workers from other countries after proving - mostly through repeated visits to state labor offices - that they couldn't find enough authorized workers.
The program has been criticized by Feinstein and agriculture employment groups as being too bureaucratic, only helping about 2 percent of farmers and of failing to address the ability of farmers to recruit foreign workers on a timely basis.
The proposed changes would streamline the process for farmers, allowing them to tell U.S. Department of Labor officials directly of a workforce shortage so they can take part in the visa program.
But opponents question, among other things, whether farmers could abuse the system, displacing authorized workers with foreign workers. Opponents also fear visa holders would tolerate mistreatment to keep their jobs.
Scott Gerber, a spokesman for Sen. Feinstein, said during the past few years the senator has heard many stories of labor shortages, farmers moving operations to Mexico and crops rotting in the fields because there aren't enough workers to harvest them.
Feinstein wants to make sure there's a reliable, stable source of labor for agriculture, Gerber said, adding that the H2-A visa program has been mostly unworkable for most California employers.
Morgan Hill farmer Tim Chiala, the new chairman of the California Farm Bureau Federation's group Young Farmers and Ranchers Program, representing about 1,800 young farmers between the ages of 18 to 35 in the state, is supporting reforms to the country's farmworker guest-worker program.
"We support closing the borders and tightening security, but at the same time you can't cut our labor supply of migrant workers to California," he said. "Allow us to set up the parameters to ensure we have enough people to harvest our crops."
Chiala farms about 600 acres of fertile land throughout Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Hollister. He mostly grows garlic and peppers. Chiala said the H2-A visa program doesn't work.
"It's a ton of paper work to do it ... the cost associated with doing the program exceeds any benefit from doing it," Chiala said. "There's a lot of holes in the H2-A program and so a lot of farmers don't even use it."
Chiala said labor supply has been tight during the past three years for local farmers. The industry has changed so much, he said, that farmers aren't growing what they think they can make money on, but what they think they can get picked.
"The smaller fruits and vegetables and anything labor intensive is going away and doesn't get planted any more," he said.
Chiala said he's having to import more peppers from Mexico because he can't get the local supply he used to get because workers don't want to pick jalapenos as they're too small and labor intensive. Chiala grows most of it himself, but he does import some from Mexico to meet his customers' needs.
Jack King, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation, said as a result of the critical labor shortages, the industry is adjusting to having fewer workers.
"There have been a few instances when crops weren't harvested at all or in a timely manner with value decreasing," such as strawberries, King said.
Employers who rely on hired laborers are changing crops to deal with the uncertainty, he added, taking peach trees out and replacing them with almond trees, which are easier to pick.
Chiala said it's a short-term solution to a problem faced every summer by local farmers until Congress can put together a reform program to deal with migrant and undocumented workers in the country.
Chiala said Feinstein's overhaul would not lower farmworker wages which range from minimum wage to higher hourly rates for more skilled workers.
Like Chiala, Andy Mariani, owner of Andy's Orchard, welcomed Feinstein's program and any other proposal that would make it easy for him to attract more agriculture employees. He's experienced a shortage of workers during the 2006 and 2007 harvest season when he hasn't been able to find enough workers to harvest, sort, pack and ship the cherries, apricots, peaches, plums and nectarines he grows in his 40 acres in east Morgan Hill. He anticipates an even more difficult time recruiting farmworkers this year.
Mariani usually gets his workers through labor contractors, who have also had a hard time finding workers, he said.
Mariani said he knows many farmworkers who have chosen to go work at racetracks cleaning horse stables because it's easier for them to get visas to do that type of work.
"We need the people there and available ... Food crops are perishable and there's not a whole lot of people who are willing to do this kind of work. It's not fun work, but people can make a fairly good living doing it," he said.
For his part, King called Feinstein's proposal a refinement in legislation she has previously authored such as the AgJobs plan.
"This won't be a pathway to citizenship but a way to acknowledge in the country that agriculture is dependent upon a foreign-born workforce," King said. "Most of the people who work in California agriculture were not born here and there's a mutual reliance. The ag economy is vitally dependent on a reliable workforce."
King said there are between 425,000 and 450,000 agriculture employees in the state every year during peak employment season in August. He also reiterated the well-known fact that half of the nation's production of fruits and vegetables comes from California.
Sheila Sanchez Sheila Sanchez is the editor of the Morgan Hill Times. She can be reached at ssanchez@morganhilltimes.com.
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