Fruit and vegetable harvests lower than expected

I found an article that might interest you, since it looks like your vegetable and fruit prices are going to be going up. Below are a few quotes from the article:

Georgia, Alabama, and Utah are the first states to follow in the footsteps of Arizona, passing laws that expand the power of local police to check the immigration status of residents. Legislators who back the new laws say they’re sending a message that they want illegal immigrants to leave their states, and that the federal government should do more to stop illegal immigration.

Apparently, migrant farm workers have listened, at least in Georgia.

The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association told CNN that after Gov. Nathan Deal signed a law modeled after Arizona’s SB1070 in May, farm workers have fled the area. Some farmers lost as much as 50 percent of their workforce, they say. (The law is already being challenged in court; Arizona’s similar SB 1070 has been blocked by two higher courts.)

Fifth-generation Georgia farmer Gary Paulk told local paper The Daily Journal that he has only been able to find half of the 300 workers he needs to pick his blueberry fields, and that’s after hiking wages 20 percent. Another farmer said he had to switch to (less efficient) machines when he couldn’t find enough workers for his fields this spring. …

Gov. Deal is now pushing to recruit native-born Georgians to fill the gaps, arguing that the high unemployment rate should make that possible. Nationally, about 85 percent of all agriculture workers are foreign-born, and as many as 70 to 75 percent are undocumented.

Industry insiders tell The Lookout that politicians shouldn’t hold their breath while waiting for Americans to flock to farm jobs.

“Our economists have estimated that in the U.S. economy there are 10 million-plus people who work at wages lower than what they could make in agriculture because they aren’t attracted to the work,” American Farm Bureau Federation government relations director Paul Schlegel said. He says the long hours, irregular employment and physical demands of farm jobs mean Americans would rather work elsewhere for less. …

Around the country, states are considering a cocktail of measures that both sanction employees who hire undocumented workers and empower local cops to question people about their immigration status. Arizona’s employer sanctions law was recently upheld by the Supreme Court, which means many more states may soon adopt similar measures. Agricultural advocates say their business is uniquely dependent on migrant labor, and these laws could put them out of business. …

Regelbrugge says there are also signs of farm labor shortages in Florida, Georgia, Michigan and California. It’s unclear what exactly is causing the dearth of workers, but he speculates that increased border security has kept some migrants who would have returned to Mexico after the picking season in the United States, where they have then moved into other industries. Tougher borders also mean fewer migrant workers are willing to risk coming into the United States to replace them.

We told you so!

As the article mentions, even with raised wages, American are not willing to work the fields. Economists have been pointing that out for several years. Americans would rather take a lower paying job. Crop harvesting is a tremendously physically demanding occupation with little reward and absolutely no future. In fact, a McDonald’s job has more of a future than the job of crop picker, which is seasonal, at best. Were the wages to be raised high enough for Americans to be willing to work the fields, the price of your groceries would have you electing a new Congress yet again. The immigration system is desperately broken. The farmers who most need migrant labor, as the article mentions, are unable to get through the bureaucratic hoops necessary in order to have migrant workers approved to work on their farm. That is assuming that they would get approval. Moreover, the continuing insistence that first we must guarantee that no future alien be able to cross the border illegally before we allow immigration reform is simply the same as saying that there will never be immigration reform. Our borders are much too large for us to ever be able to fully control them. Sadly, that is a terrorist’s greatest advantage, though we do not like to admit it.

But, worse is yet to come. Large sections of the construction industry are staffed by people here illegally. And, the construction industry is known for under the table cash payments, even to Americans, in order to avoid those pesky required employer contributions. In order to truly control the construction industry so that illegals cannot be employed, it will also be necessary to catch those under the table payments, which is fine, in one sense. But, be prepared to see construction costs go up and construction to be delayed. The construction industry will have to pay higher wages in order to get American labor, plus they will have to pay those pesky required employer contributions, plus it will take longer to build houses, etc., as many Americans would not willingly and consistently put in 12 hour days (let alone the required overtime payments by the employers). That house you wished to build will cost more.

I should also mention that the price of that chicken in your pot and the beef on your grill is likely to go up. Guess who are a large proportion of the employees at every chicken and beef processing plant?

Finally, your vacation bills and business travel bills will go up. Next time you go to a hotel or motel, see who is cleaning them. In order to hire Americans, that industry also will need to pay higher wages. And, the cascading effect will end up in your vacation or business travel budget.

The easiest solution, of course, would be to do what many countries do, which is to have a guest worker visa. It is what the American Farm Bureau Federation is begging for. (Hmm, the Farm Bureau is NOT a liberal organization in any way.) It has been precisely the lack of an easy way to request a guest worker visa that helped fuel the willingness of farmers, the hospitality industry, the chicken and beef industries, and the construction industry to hire people who are here illegally. Moreover, an easily accessible guest worker program also allows for a pre-check on anyone entering this country, and permits a very tough enforcement of immigration laws upon the employers. This would result in both increased security for the country, and, frankly, increased revenue for the government by way of the required employer contribution.

But, I suspect that it will take a pocketbook hit before Americans realize that guest workers are part of what has been helping keep this economy afloat. Currently they are illegal. In the near future they may not exist and instead prices will go up and up. This means that your disposable income will go even further down. Hopefully, this will finally overcome the overt resistance to any type of immigration reform, particularly by those whose stance is to keep moving the bar every time that any current government comes close to meeting their demands. President Bush, who was actually a friend to Latinos, found that out during his time in office.