American farmers are losing billions of dollars a year because a shortage of farmworkers is resulting in crops spoiling in unpicked fields.
The estimated loss is between $5 billion and $9 billion annually, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“The enforcement of immigration policy has devastated the skilled labor source that we’ve depended on for 20 or 30 years,” said Ralph Broetje during a recent teleconference organized by the National Immigration Forum, adding that last year Washington farmers—part of an $8 billion agricultural industry—were forced to leave 10% of their crops rotting on vines and trees. “It’s getting worse each year,” says Broetje, “and it’s going to end up putting some growers out of business if Congress doesn’t step up and do immigration reform.”
Roughly 70% of the 1.2 million people employed by the agricultural industry are undocumented. No American industry is more dependent on undocumented immigrants. But acute labor shortages brought on by anti-immigration measures threaten to heap record losses on an industry reemerging from years of stiff foreign competition. Nationwide, labor shortages will result in losses of up to $9 billion, according to the Farm Bureau Federation.
In Arizona, Nan Walden’s complaints mirror those of the Broetjes. Walden is vice president of the family-owned Farmers Investment Co., the largest grower and processor of pecans in the world, with 6,000 acres of farmland in the Santa Cruz Valley, 35 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Walden says the state system in place for luring seasonal workers is wholly inefficient, adding that Arizona’s infamous immigration law, SB1070, has only compounded the problem, creating a climate of fear for Arizona employers and employees. “This has led to people leaving our state, going to other states without these ambiguous clouds and legal sanctions hanging over employers’ and employees’ heads,” said Walden.
In Georgia, where lawmakers adopted a tough anti-immigration law that has scared away many undocumented workers, only 7,000 pickers showed up for 12,000 available jobs during 2011. The result was $70 million in crop losses for farmers, according to a University of Georgia survey.
In California, the nation’s leading agricultural state, farmers are reporting labor shortages of 30% to 40%.
Small farmers have been hardest hit because they typically offer only a few days work at a time and pickers would rather stick with longer-term jobs.
Agricultural representatives in Washington have advocated for an overhaul of the government’s H-2A federal guest worker program, which allows visiting farmworkers to stay in the country and work toward legal immigration status.
In addition, the worst drought in a generation is hitting farmers across America's corn belt far harder than government projections and forcing them to a heart-breaking decision: harvest what's left of their shrivelled acres or abandon their entire crop.
The additional crop failures are set to push corn and soy bean prices upward of today's all-time high. Corn prices have risen by about 40% in the last few weeks, soybeans by about 25%.
That, in time, will mean higher prices for milk, poultry and meat for American consumers, and misery – possibly chaos and unrest – in African and Latin American countries, which depend on imported grains, food security experts say.
But in Indiana, at the centre of the drought, they say the true extent of the crop losses will be far higher.
"Everybody that has walked their fields knows it's going to be worse than what they thought. That's just a universal across-the-board deal," said Norv Gottula, who owns the Cloverdale Agri Centre grain dealership.
"We've had droughts like this in '83 and in '88, but this here is more severe and it's going to be more wide reaching than before. One, because I think the actual crop loss and devastation is going to be worse, and two, because there is so much more money involved in putting up a crop," he said.
The US government warned this week that a third of the corn and soybean crop in drought-stricken areas was in poor condition.
The United States currently pays around $20 billion per year to farmers in direct subsidies as "farm income stabilization" via U.S. farm bills. These bills pre-date the economic turmoil of the Great Depression with the 1922 Grain Futures Act, the 1929 Agricultural Marketing Act and the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act creating a tradition of government support.
The estimated loss is between $5 billion and $9 billion annually, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“The enforcement of immigration policy has devastated the skilled labor source that we’ve depended on for 20 or 30 years,” said Ralph Broetje during a recent teleconference organized by the National Immigration Forum, adding that last year Washington farmers—part of an $8 billion agricultural industry—were forced to leave 10% of their crops rotting on vines and trees. “It’s getting worse each year,” says Broetje, “and it’s going to end up putting some growers out of business if Congress doesn’t step up and do immigration reform.”
Roughly 70% of the 1.2 million people employed by the agricultural industry are undocumented. No American industry is more dependent on undocumented immigrants. But acute labor shortages brought on by anti-immigration measures threaten to heap record losses on an industry reemerging from years of stiff foreign competition. Nationwide, labor shortages will result in losses of up to $9 billion, according to the Farm Bureau Federation.
In Arizona, Nan Walden’s complaints mirror those of the Broetjes. Walden is vice president of the family-owned Farmers Investment Co., the largest grower and processor of pecans in the world, with 6,000 acres of farmland in the Santa Cruz Valley, 35 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Walden says the state system in place for luring seasonal workers is wholly inefficient, adding that Arizona’s infamous immigration law, SB1070, has only compounded the problem, creating a climate of fear for Arizona employers and employees. “This has led to people leaving our state, going to other states without these ambiguous clouds and legal sanctions hanging over employers’ and employees’ heads,” said Walden.
In Georgia, where lawmakers adopted a tough anti-immigration law that has scared away many undocumented workers, only 7,000 pickers showed up for 12,000 available jobs during 2011. The result was $70 million in crop losses for farmers, according to a University of Georgia survey.
In California, the nation’s leading agricultural state, farmers are reporting labor shortages of 30% to 40%.
Small farmers have been hardest hit because they typically offer only a few days work at a time and pickers would rather stick with longer-term jobs.
Agricultural representatives in Washington have advocated for an overhaul of the government’s H-2A federal guest worker program, which allows visiting farmworkers to stay in the country and work toward legal immigration status.
In addition, the worst drought in a generation is hitting farmers across America's corn belt far harder than government projections and forcing them to a heart-breaking decision: harvest what's left of their shrivelled acres or abandon their entire crop.
The additional crop failures are set to push corn and soy bean prices upward of today's all-time high. Corn prices have risen by about 40% in the last few weeks, soybeans by about 25%.
That, in time, will mean higher prices for milk, poultry and meat for American consumers, and misery – possibly chaos and unrest – in African and Latin American countries, which depend on imported grains, food security experts say.
But in Indiana, at the centre of the drought, they say the true extent of the crop losses will be far higher.
"Everybody that has walked their fields knows it's going to be worse than what they thought. That's just a universal across-the-board deal," said Norv Gottula, who owns the Cloverdale Agri Centre grain dealership.
"We've had droughts like this in '83 and in '88, but this here is more severe and it's going to be more wide reaching than before. One, because I think the actual crop loss and devastation is going to be worse, and two, because there is so much more money involved in putting up a crop," he said.
The US government warned this week that a third of the corn and soybean crop in drought-stricken areas was in poor condition.
The United States currently pays around $20 billion per year to farmers in direct subsidies as "farm income stabilization" via U.S. farm bills. These bills pre-date the economic turmoil of the Great Depression with the 1922 Grain Futures Act, the 1929 Agricultural Marketing Act and the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act creating a tradition of government support.
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