I grow bell peppers on the central coast of California on land my family has been farming for three generations. We plant a little more than 1,000 acres and need approximately 125 to 250 employees throughout the year. For as long as I can remember, the overwhelming majority of those men and women have been from Mexico or Central America. Few U.S. workers apply for the jobs, and those who do rarely last more than a few days.
This year, we tried everything we could think of, raising our wages to the point that we almost priced ourselves out of the market. But we still couldn’t find enough workers to get the job done.
I’m not the only farmer short on workers these days. Whether you live in Oregon, Washington, California or out east in Alabama and Georgia, or whether you grow bell peppers, cherries, berries, apples, pears, tomatoes, asparagus or ornamental trees, you’re in trouble if you pick your crop mostly by hand as opposed to machine. In California, where farming brings in $38 billion in annual revenue, the number of workers available this year was said to be 20 percent below normal.
Farmers across the country are being battered by a perfect storm. Immigration enforcement is getting tougher. It’s much harder and more expensive than just a few years ago for workers to cross the border without papers. There’s more work at home in Mexico. And try as we might — and believe me, we try — most of us still can’t replace our foreign workers with Americans.
There’s only one solution: a workable, streamlined, legal way to hire foreign workers. But after more than a decade of trying, Congress can’t do its job and create a program that works.
I’m pretty typical of farmers who rely on immigrant workers. I look at employees’ papers and fill out I-9 employment forms — after all, the last thing I want is to put my operation at risk by hiring an unlawful labor force. I’ll raise wages when I have to in order to attract people, although of course I can only raise them so much before my produce becomes too expensive to sell. And there’s nothing I’d like better than to hire American workers.
But in the end, my crop won’t wait. If I can’t find enough willing and able U.S. workers, I need a fast, legal, reliable way to hire foreign farm hands.
The good news: A lot of farmers in my situation are starting to come together and come up with ideas. Under pressure from growers, several bills were introduced in Congress this year to streamline or replace the existing H-2A temporary agricultural worker program. Nothing passed. Democrats and Republicans couldn’t agree. It’s an old impasse: Most Democrats oppose temporary worker programs and prefer legalizing unauthorized workers, while most Republicans favor visa programs and oppose legalization. But the truth is we need an answer for workers already here and a new program. Several regional and national farm groups are developing compromise proposals.
I don’t understand why this is so hard for Congress. American farmers like me have seen enough politics as usual. We hope the newly elected Congress can come together around a deal that works for American farmers, American workers and foreigners who want to work in the U.S. legally.
Ryan Talley operates Talley Farms based in Arroyo Grande. He wrote this for this newspaper.
