Texas Farms Are Suffering From A Labor Crisis
The Dallas Morning News has an interesting op-ed piece today, written by the owner of a large Texas produce company. The gist is that many farmers are having to cut back on their production, or change the types of crops they grow, because of a shortage in farm laborers. He suggests we need immigration reform or we will have to begin importing our food from Mexico. Here are excerpts:
American farmers are living an unfolding labor crisis so much worse than a drought or a flood or a plague of locusts. But unlike those natural disasters, this one is entirely preventable, if we only had enough national leaders willing to act on common-sense solutions.
Instead, we're getting nothing but "get tough" laws and regulations that will bring dangerous consequences.
While row crops like corn and wheat have been successfully mechanized, the fact is that hand labor is still critical to bringing in the harvest of wholesome fresh fruit, vegetables, milk and meat. More than 80 percent of the hired labor force bringing in the harvest is foreign born, and likely two-thirds to three-quarters does not have proper immigration status.
Despite this, America's current dysfunctional immigration policy is one of "enforcement first, damn the consequences." This approach is driving our food productivity out of the U.S., plain and simple.
Here in Texas, we have the third-largest labor-intensive agricultural sector in the country. What is happening to it? In a recent Texas A&M study and survey, 77 percent of responding growers reported that they are actively scaling back their business because of labor concerns.
This means planting less, harvesting less and switching to subsidized row crops rather than free-market crops like fruit and vegetables. Almost 30 percent reported moving at least some of their operations out of the country. Many more are considering that option.
As production leaves the U.S., the giant sucking sound will be the shriveling of our rural economies.
Our policymakers keep bringing us more of the same dangerous policies. This month, President Bush announced new rules forcing federal contractors and subcontractors to electronically verify the eligibility of their workforce. Only a handful of farms across America could meet this test. Yet the immigration restrictionists cheered loudly.
Will they be cheering when our military and school lunch programs are forced to buy fruit, vegetables and milk from other countries to feed our troops and our children?
A solution for the farm labor crisis cannot wait until a new president and Congress decide to revisit this toughest of issues. The cost of losing control of our food supply is too great
Seems like there are two moral solutions to this labor problem--either pay what it takes to lure American citizens to do this work (and tax imports from countries who pay their workers less), or allow temporary foreign workers to do the work without the protections of minimum wage, social security, medicaid, etc. So, if the worker gets sick or old--either the farmer pays or they go home. No matter what the solution chosen, the costs of the farm operation need to be borne by the farm operation and passed on to consumers. What we can't have is invisible subsidies where the farmers pay a meager wage and then pass on all the other costs of their workers (be they native or foreign) to taxpayers at large.
I agree with you that the current system is badly broken. I think the answer is a combination of border enforcement and increased temporary worker visas.
The U.S. consumer has become so price-conscious that increasing prices in order to cover increased wages and benefits may drive consumers to buy more foreign-produced products.
Unemployment is still low in the U.S., and it may simply be impossible to find citizen workers to do certain jobs at any reasonable pay rate. For example, I'd pick lettuce myself if the pay was high enough, but then who could afford the lettuce?
There are no easy solutions, and politicians simply refuse to make tough decisions.