After immigration crackdown, farmers mull planting

In this photo from May 2011, a field worker emp­ties a bucket of vidalia onions into a wait­ing truck in Lyons, Ga. Geor­gia and Alabama have approved laws that have tough enforce­ment pro­vi­sions that farm­ers say are scar­ing migrant work­ers away from the states. (Asso­ci­ated Press | David Goldman)

KATE BRUMBACK

Asso­ci­ated Press

ATLANTA — It’s unclear whether farm­ers in Geor­gia and Alabama will face a short­age of work­ers due to tough new laws tar­get­ing ille­gal immi­gra­tion, but some pro­duc­ers said they have begun chang­ing their plans for plant­ing and har­vest­ing this year’s crops.

Some farm­ers said they might reduce the num­ber of acres they plant or shift to less labor-intensive crops, while oth­ers are brac­ing for higher labor prices and have turned to new recruit­ing tools to attract workers.

“We’re expect­ing some shifts, but it’s a bit too early to tell,” said Charles Hall, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Geor­gia Fruit and Veg­etable Grow­ers Association.

Geor­gia and Alabama have approved laws that have tough enforce­ment pro­vi­sions that farm­ers say are scar­ing migrant work­ers away from the states.

Since the laws were approved last year, farm­ers in both states have reported labor short­ages because migrant work­ers aren’t show­ing up and they say they can’t find other work­ers to fill the jobs. Farm­ers and state offi­cials have said that some pro­duce was left to rot in the field last year because there weren’t enough work­ers to help with the harvest.

Farm­ers have claimed not enough U.S. cit­i­zens want the jobs, but some said the issue is actu­ally that pro­duc­ers won’t offer a high enough wage to attract legal workers.

Brett Hall, Alabama’s deputy agri­cul­ture com­mis­sioner, said nurs­eries across south Alabama are try­ing to find work­ers to fill about 2,000 jobs ahead of the spring grow­ing sea­son. Many nurs­ery grow­ers are staffing job fairs in hopes of attract­ing employ­ees, he said.

Other grow­ers aren’t order­ing seeds or new equip­ment because they antic­i­pate a labor short­age, he said.

“Before this law, migrant work­ers would just show up. They knew when they were needed,” Hall said. “That’s not hap­pen­ing anymore.”

In Geor­gia, some grow­ers of the state’s famed Vidalia onions are plant­ing fewer acres of the labor-intensive crop, which could lead to a roughly 10 per­cent drop in pro­duc­tion, said Bob Stafford, direc­tor of the Vidalia Onion Busi­ness Council.

Stafford said it’s unclear if the smaller crop will mean con­sumers will pay more for the prized sweet onions because prices are depen­dent on many fac­tors, includ­ing the weather and fuel costs.

Aries Hay­good, chair­man of the Vidalia Onion Com­mit­tee, said he has reduced plant­ing by about 15 per­cent at his farm near Lyons, Ga., because of labor con­cerns and other factors.

Hay­good and some other farm­ers in both states are using a fed­eral guest worker pro­gram, known as H-2A, which lets farm­ers bring in an unlim­ited num­ber of tem­po­rary agri­cul­ture workers.

But some com­plain it’s too expen­sive and doesn’t allow enough flexibility.

Hay­good said it’s also tough to get the tim­ing just right and some­times his work­ers’ visas run out before the end of the harvest.

Some mem­bers of Georgia’s con­gres­sional del­e­ga­tion have pro­posed changes to the H-2A pro­gram, notably allow­ing farm­ers to pro­vide work­ers with vouch­ers to obtain hous­ing nearby rather than being required to pro­vide on-site housing.

Daw­son Mor­ton, a lawyer with the Geor­gia Legal Ser­vices Pro­gram, dis­missed com­plaints about the guest worker pro­gram, argu­ing the real issue is farm­ers don’t want to pay a legal wage or pro­vide basic housing.

“The H-2A con­di­tions are hardly extrav­a­gant,” Mor­ton said. “They’re so mod­est that most Amer­i­cans aren’t will­ing to accept them.”

Mor­ton noted that a report by Geor­gia Agri­cul­ture Com­mis­sioner Gary Black showed that some farm­ers believe legal work­ers are more expen­sive and won’t work as hard.

“Gary Black’s report shows that there is an attempt by agri­cul­ture to shape pol­icy to get them­selves as cheap a labor force as pos­si­ble,” Mor­ton said. “This doesn’t look like an indus­try that’s inter­ested in com­ply­ing with the law or that’s inter­ested in pay­ing a legal wage.”

Two of the biggest Vidalia farm­ers, Del­bert Bland and R.T. Stan­ley, said they don’t plan to reduce their crops.

Bland has used the fed­eral guest worker pro­gram for years, and Stan­ley said he would likely request a crew of guest work­ers to sup­ple­ment his other work­ers dur­ing the height of the harvest.

“I’m get­ting them planted all right,” Stan­ley said. “But when it gets to be time to har­vest them in April or May, I’m concerned.”

Rather than reduc­ing acreage, Kent Hamil­ton, who has veg­etable farms near Tifton, Ga., plans to increase his sweet corn, cucum­ber and bell pep­per crops by 15 per­cent because he thinks other grow­ers will plant less.

Hamil­ton has used the fed­eral guest worker pro­gram for years. He gen­er­ally brings in about 400 tem­po­rary for­eign work­ers but is build­ing more hous­ing to accom­mo­date 515 this year.

Darvin Eason farms black­ber­ries, cot­ton and peanuts in Lenox, deep in south Georgia.

Cot­ton and peanuts can be har­vested mechan­i­cally, but black­ber­ries must be picked by hand, requir­ing a lot of work­ers for a period of sev­eral weeks.

“If you don’t pick them every day, you lose some. They start to fall on the ground,” he said.

A rel­a­tively small-scale farmer, Eason’s 4 acres of bushes pro­duce about 50,000 pounds of berries a year. But hav­ing made a hefty invest­ment in the bushes, he can’t eas­ily reduce his har­vest this year. His labor con­trac­tor has already told him he’ll likely have to pay higher wages this year because it’s going to be tougher to find workers.

Posted by AP News on Jan 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.