Help Wanted
Labor availability is certainly a big issue for growers all over. A recently published article points out how much Georgia farmers are struggling to get their crops picked thanks mostly to a newly passed Arizona-style immigration law.
A government-based program to replace fleeing migrant farmworkers with probationers didn’t go over so well. I have heard of similar type results here in Florida.
Have you, or would you ever consider using probationers as an alternative labor source on your farm?
Tags: Florida, Georgia, agriculture, immigration, labor, probationers
Views: 45
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jack Ellis on -
Anyone who thinks that young, urban, african-americans will do farm work must be from another planet! Their political leadership, like the mayor of Atlanta, will undercut any such program and portray it as a modern version of slavery. Factory work perhaps, but agriculture no way - not with their history!
Without mexicans, the fresh produce industry will be forced to undergo massive changes. And the consumers, the same short-sighted people who ran-off the mexicans at the ballot box, aren't going to like it. Anything that can't be mechanically harvested will be outrageously expensive - or not even available.
Meanwhile, agriculture in states like Texas, that have chosen not to jump on the anti-mexican bandwagon, will continue to prosper. Deja atras el suelo rojo de Georgia, compadre, y venga a las arenas Tejanas donde se puede trabajar sin acoso. [Leave that red Georgia dirt behind, compadre and come to the sands of Texas where you can work without being harrassed]
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Jack Ellis on
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There are silver linings for some segments of the industry, though. Innovative equipment manufacturers could thrive with new types of harvesting machinery, as will mom & pop "local" growers with roadside stands, farmers markets. Home gardens, even in urban settings, will likely continue to increase - a highly lucrative market for seed, fertilizer, tool/equipment and chemical suppliers.
Selfishly, it would be a tremendous boon to us if Texas passed a narrow-minded, racist law like that. As a non-profit, all volunteer, donation-based, church-affiliated charity, we even get some free, highly-skilled, knowledgeable, legal mexican labor from our hispanic mission members - and volunteers from local black churches too, who appreciate our efforts to supply fresh vegetables to underprivileged families. As prices increase, so will voluntary donations from our upscale benefactors.
But it's not a good thing for the national food supply, consumer prices or the ag indusry as a whole. Hopefully, when food prices go through the roof, Congress will finally pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill that legalizes those currently in residence here and allows guest workers to cross the border freely.
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Jack Ellis on
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Here in Texas, we have a special and unique relationship with Mexico, which has not always been peaceful, but always respectful. Although South Texas is changing with the influx of Yankee snowbirds, there has never been any ethnic-based, anti-mexican bigotry like we see in Arizona (which is full of people from So Calif) and now Georgia. On the contrary, many of us are completely bilingual and proudly carry at least a few drops of mexican blood in our veins. Sadly, over the years we have not shown the same respect for our black brothers and sisters. We are trying to make that up to them now - but they aren't ready to go back to the cotton fields and that's understandable.
Our border with Mexico has never been tight like it is now. It's always been porous and easily crossed in either direction. Anyone who has been in South Texas knows that Mexico "comes on gradually" as you drive south, and it never used to be real clear just where Texas ended and Mexico began - and we liked it that way. In my youth, the Border Patrol agents were few and far betwen and mostly drank coffee all night and did very little patrolling - the whole thing was a joke. Nobody took the federal law seriously. But that's all changed since 911- it's impossible to cross now without a coyote (who nowadays is likely to be a narco-traficante as well, a real murderous criminal) and they charge $3000US with no guarantees. A guy I know recently went back to Sinaloa for his mother's funeral - and it took him three months and EIGHT tries to get back to his job and family in Texas, at a total cost of nearly $10,000 in bribes and pay-offs plus lodging and meals in Reynosa! The smuggling cartels love the new system though - more business for them - but everyone else is a loser, especially farmers.
It seems that everything the federal government touches turns to...poo poo!
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Greg on -
It is hard to understand the delima of southern growers over the use of immigrant labor from us up North. The farmers and ranchers, vegetable growers, and landscapers, (and painters,Jack) up here in the North either do it themselves, or hire local. They don't look for cheap labor, and expect to pay for what they get. In our particular case, we use equipment and our own labor to provide a fine living for the two of us. And we have only been doing it for 27 years. Why not hire local and legal?
Yes, I have seen the posts pertaining to our slothful youth that don't want to work in the fields, but I don't agree with that. I have a son in the Navy, a nephew in the Air Force Acadamy, a niece as a Jag Officer in the Coast Guard, and don't begrudge them for not picking melons in hot fields. Lets pay a good wage, and make farming a fruitful experience, and maybe we won't have to count on slave wages and conditions to make a profit in agriculture from illegal workers.
Greg
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Permalink Reply by Jack Ellis on
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Hi Greg --
Your weather is a lot different. Mexicans can take our heat and humidity and anglos can't - I mean they literally CAN'T take it, regardless of how much you pay them - they'll collapse and, in some cases, die if exposed to it for hours on end. We can work outside in full sun this time of year until maybe 11:00, noon max, but a mexican can work all day.
I saw it in the paint trade too. Once I was determined to prove I was as tough as them, and kept-on working with them after lunch on the sunny side of the building. In less than an hour, I saw black spots but kept going - then I got dizzy, but, being young and foolish, I wouldn't quit. Then I passed-out, on a scaffold thirty feet up, and one of the mexicans grabbed me before I fell to my death. They got me down and put me in the shade to recover, and went back to work smiling and laughing.
And it wasn't just me - NO white painter could do it for long. It's something physiological, Greg - or perhaps they are just hardened and conditioned from childhood - but they can work in the Texas sun and we can't.
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Jack Ellis on
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My wife says we are in air conditioning most of the time and they grow-up without that luxury. She says that, although we older people grew-up also without A/C, we have had it for many, many years. But the mexicans aren't used to it at all (unless they come from really upscale mexican homes, and those kind of people don't come here to pick peas or swing a paint brush). I think she's right on that because, looking back, even older folks could take a lot more heat in the old days. So it's not "genetic" it's A/C!
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Jack Ellis on
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Moreover, Greg, a lot of the big farms down in the Valley are paying $10 and some even more for skilled pickers! That's good money here. Highly skilled construction hands only make $12-$15 in rural Texas and supply their own tools. It's not slavery - it's a good job, but neither white nor black people will do it even if they could. That leaves mexicans - they're close-by, eager to work and skilled. It makes absolutely no sense to ban them! What makes sense is to issue them green cards.
You may see them passing through Billings pretty soon on their way south. I hear on the grapevine that the smugglers have purchased some old offshore oilfield supply vessels from Brazil. These are big boats, capable of carrying a lot of people and plenty of fuel to make the trip in international waters from Ensenada BC to British Columbia. The canadian authorities probably won't care, and the northern border is wide open and basically indefensible. So, then the feds will have to move a lot of personnel north, which will reopen the old routes down here. They'll never be able to stop it - you can't keep a hungry man from a waiting job!
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Jack Ellis on
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A little food for thought ----
History teaches us that international boundaries are just arbitrary lines drawn on a map - almost always after a war. When these lines no longer reflect economic, political or ethnic realities, they are always changed, usually by more moe warfare. History also shows that no walls, armies, mountain ranges, rivers or even oceans can stop a mass migration of people seeking economic opportunities and a better life for their children.
The combined military power of Spain, France and Great Britain could not stop the impoverished masses of Europe from populating and conquering North America. And all the technological and military might of the United States of America will ultimately succumb to the unrelenting pressure of desperate throngs of humanity now pushing hard against our southern frontier. It's "deja vu all over again".
It's all Spain's fault - our british forebears effectively exterminated the native population north of the Rio Bravo, but Spain chose to christianize and civilize their indigenous peoples instead, and now they are encroaching on our anglo culture. There's only one decision to make - do we follow the old failed strategies of the past and seek to repel them by force? Or do we take a more enlightened approach and work with Latin American countries to allow these natural movements of people to flow in an organized and peaceful manner?
Just remember, that not even the might of Imperial Rome could stop the flow of peoples from northern Europe. They slowed them down, shedding their own blood in the process, but there is nothing more relentless than an economically motivated wave of impoverished, enslaved humanity. Our own country is living proof of that historical reality!
We can't stop them, but we can welcome them and benefit from their ambitions and dreams of a better life. And we even have the opportunity of americanizing Mexico with our own values and capital investment as a trade-off. An open border is a two-way road - and american farmers and corporations can also guide, and profit richly from, the long-overdue development of the vast resources of Mexico - but only if we establish the the right kind of relationship with them at this crucial juncture.
But, realistically and sadly, more Berlin-type walls, military force and continued squandering of scarce funds on a losing battle may be more likely - at least in the short run.
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Lise Rousseau Silva on
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We frequently are questioned/criticized for not hiring "local" labor to harvest our fruit crop. The last time anyone "local" came looking for work here, harvest work, not a glamorized "internship," was...never.
Once upon a time fruit in this region was picked, packed and sorted by local high school kids. The youngest person to ever come by and reminisce about those days is probably 60. Local kids and out of work adults seem to have NO interest in this type of work.
The lovely, hard working, and skilled folks that come here in the summer to pick cherries work circles around me and my husband. They beat us to the orchards and are willing to go as long or longer than we do. They seem to appreciate that we work with them and that we see their efforts as collaborative in getting our crop in. There is pride in what happens to our fruit. We are very fortunate that the same crew returns to us year after year. I take that as a compliment. We pay well by local standards, by the pound rather than by the lug, and there is a friendly competition between pickers as to who picks the most in a day. If it matters, our crew all are from Mexico at some point, either they came here or are the children of folks who came here. They all are legal, and all are insisting that their kids will NOT work in the fields as a career, but they want the older ones to pick with them so they learn how to work hard. So far we've seen their children graduate from high school and go off to some kind of secondary schooling. Impressive.
The last Anglos we hired, several years ago, were disasters. They, too, were migrants, coming from the orchards in Washington. One gentleman worked for one day, got drunk that night, railed against "the Mexicans" breaking the protocols of the orchard (?!) and abandoned us and all his belongings the next morning. We never saw him again. The others were a family of a mom, dad, and three beautiful tow-headed boys (perfect manners), who worked for two days, didn't come back from lunch the third day to go swimming, drunkenly argued with me that night about leaving, invited friends to camp with them on our property, and then took two days to abandon their onsite camp leaving me with a huge mess.
Would I hire probationers? I don't know. I'd like to think I have an open mind, but I have become so spoiled with the skilled and willing workforce we enjoy, it would be hard to make a change. We frankly don't really have the time to train someone to do the work we do when we only have need for them for a week out of the year. And as a woman who frequently is managing the farm alone, I don't know if I'd be comfortable with ex-cons as my primary workforce.
Unlike Greg, two people cannot harvest an 8-acre cherry crop by themselves, regardless of equipment. We need reliable help.
Jack is right here. We need comprehensive immigration reform. Workers and employers need to have the security of knowing that everyone is legal. We need to get the real criminals, the coyotes, off the backs of the honest hardworking folks that so desperately want to come here. Workers need to be free from the rare but unscrupulous employer who uses their status as a threat. We need to stop this ridiculous argument that Latin American/Mexican migrants are taking Ag jobs away from U.S. citizens that want them.
I made a comment above about interns. There are a number of back-to-the-land 20-somethings that want to work on small farms in this area to learn the trade. We have yet to tap into this market of labor. A truck farmer friend has had very mixed results...she relies solely on interns and volunteers to help her with her farm and spends too much of her time dealing with their personal issues, fluctuating motivation, waning interest, abandonment, etc. There is a distinct difference in people who are working to live, and people who are working to find themselves. There are some kids, probably one or two out of her seasonal crew of eight that shines every year, but those are not percentages that encourage me to make the plunge. We'd also be challenged with providing housing and enough work throughout a season.
© 2012 Created by Allison Bray.
