Tri Valley Herald: Good farm hands hard to find

Good farm hands hard to find

Central Valley farmers fear shortage of migrant workers will affect harvest

By Cheryl Winkelman, Staff writer

As the Central Valley’s harvest season begins to bloom, there may be a shortage of migrant farm workers available to pick fruit from the trees.

A smaller work force already has plagued some strawberry farms along the California coastline, and farmers and agriculture officials remain optimistic that troubling labor trend isn’t repeated here, said Jack King, manager of national public policy for the California Farm Bureau Federation.

"We hope that’s not going to happen, but there are fears," King said. "It’s a very uncertain time. The sort of quiet before the storm."

In California, about 450,000 workers are needed at peak times, King said. About half of those are year-round workers in, for example, dairy farms.

The other half work from May to early October, and King guessed that two-thirds of those are needed in the Central Valley, particularly as the season moves into full gear. "You kind of get a build-up of needs," King said.

But with a smaller workplace, workers not only move from farm to farm, searching for better wages, but crops are also left clinging to the vine. Last year, about 20 to 30 percent of pears in Lake County were left unharvested.

For farmers, that means their entire year’s investment is on the line; for consumers, access to American-grown crops could be limited, King said.

One reason the migrant labor work force has been drying up is a strong economy.

"People have tended to leave agriculture for permanent employment," King said.

Another is tighter immigration enforcement.

To counter that, King and 25 delegates from the state’s farm bureau will be traveling to the nation’s capital next week to push federal legislation currently in both the House and Senate that’s referred to as AgJOBS.

AgJOBS would allow immigrants to legally come into the country to work and then return home when the crops are harvested.

After three to five years, they could apply for permanent citizenship.

For now, though, Andrew S. Dasso of Stockton’s A&A Dasso Farm just hopes the 100 workers his cherry farm needs show up in about 10 days. He said word of mouth usually prompts the arrival of his cherry pickers.

"I’m worried," he said. Fewer workers being available "seems to be the trend for the last few years."

To contact Cheryl Winkelman, call (209) 832-6144 or cwinkelman@trivalleyherald.com.