Some Ala. Farmers Plant Fewer Crops, Say Immigration Crackdown Drove Away Workers To Pick Them

[Purveyor]

By Associated Press,

ONEONTA, Ala. — Some Alabama farmers say they are planting less produce rather than risk having tomatoes and other crops rot in the fields a second straight year because of labor shortages linked to the state’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Keith Dickie said he and other growers in the heart of Alabama’s tomato country didn’t have any choice but to reduce acreage amid fears there won’t be enough workers to pick the delicate fruit.

Some farmers lacked enough hands to harvest crops because immigrants fled the state after Gov. Robert Bentley signed the immigration law last fall, and some told The Associated Press they fear the same thing could happen this year.

“There’s too much uncertainty,” said Dickie, who farms with his brother on a ridge called Straight Mountain, about 40 miles northeast of Birmingham.

MORE...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/some-ala-farmers-plant-fewer-crops-say-immigration-crackdown-drove-away-workers-to-pick-them/2012/05/13/gIQAbLiSMU_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop

[hobbit709]

1. And how many of those growers voted repuke?

[ladjf]

2. Too bad the politicians didn't have enough sense to anticipate this before they passed their

draconian anti-immigration legislation.

[EFerrari]

7. They had to have known. This happens every time

one of these laws is passed. More likely, they didn't care.

[ladjf]

11. Pandering to their base regardless of the probable real negative outcome. nt

[SoutherDem]

3. Also...

A friend of mine owns 50 or so mobile homes in that area of Alabama. His primary renter are those immigrant workers. He says he always has verified his renters being legal. So, according to the bigots who wrote and passed the immigration law would say this man's business shouldn't be affected. But, it was from the beginning for two reasons.

A general fear of being constantly harassed has caused some of the legal immigrants to leave for states where they are less fearful.

Some while they were legal may have an illegal relative and they moved for their safety.

Now the farmers are taking steps to not need so many workers. Less workers will mean less renter for my friend.

This law IS effecting more than just the illegals.

Also, anyone who says Americans will take the jobs are simply wrong. It that were true nothing would have rotten on the vines last year and the farmers would have no worries this year.

[oldhippydude]

5. about americans taking those jobs..

many folks don't realize the level of skill and training it takes to make any kind of living doing agricultural labor.. i grew up in an agricultural area in 60's... us locals were simply not able to compete with transient laborers.. they not only had a well developed skill set for it but developed a musculature that enabled them to do the work quickly and effeiciently..

i would spend hours hoeing a row of sugar beets, that the mexicans could hoe almost as quickly as one could walk through..

later on when working in the old Office of Economic Opportunity. i found out that there was in fact a specialization in the labor... a local fruit producer needed picking labor.. alas the only labor available was stoop labor, you develop and use totally different musculature for what your doing co-ordination also is important when doing agricultural labor.. if you watch a crew that has worked together for a while it resembles a well choreographed ballet as much as it does a work environment..

[amandabeech]

13. When I was a teenager back in the late '60s and early '70s,

many of the younger locals picked fruit and snapped asparagus for spending money.

We were always welcomed because we did a good job. We may not have been as fast as the migrants (who were mostly from Mexico or Mexican-American from Texas), but we picked "cleaner." We had nothing but product in our crates. That meant he (and it always was a "he" back then) got the top price at the cannery. Sometimes the farmer would pay us locals extra to pick the stems, leaves twigs and sometime small branches out of the migrants' crates.

Now, however, the farms have become much larger and the pickers are judged solely on speed, and not on quality. That means locals have to pick fast and dirty like the migrants, and many don't like it. Rewarding speed only in hiring may make managements' jobs easier, but it may not actually be cost effective.

I wonder if this is an issue in Alabama.

Then there is the issue of pay.

[mactime]

4. Supply and demand

Why don't they raise their pay until workers are willing to work for them?

[provis99]

6. Alabama farmers won't be happy until they bring back slavery.

[cordelia]

8. Bullshit.

[Purveyor]

10. I almost remember one State, not sure if it was Ala., that tried prison labor. iirc, that didn't

work either but I'm too lazy tonight to research it.

[Canuckistanian]

9. Don't these Alabama farmers have lobbyists?

Or do the Tea Party state reps not take their money?

There's big profits going a wastin'

[Baitball Blogger]

12. Republican legislation=The Fallow Years.

[Egalitarian Thug]

14. More "jobs Americans won't do"

...for minimum wage. We will be much better off in the long run if/when we break this cycle of poverty and abuse.

[amandabeech]

15. There is still the H-2A seasonal agricultural worker visa.

It takes more effort to bring workers in under this program, and it requires decent treatment generally, but it can be done, and I expect once farmers get themselves set up for it, they can still turn a profit.

In my home area, farmers went to this program at some point in the '70s when the supply of Mexican nationals was cut off and fewer Mexican Americans needed the seasonal work.

Once undocumented workers again became commonplace for reasons that I don't understand, farmers ditched the H-2A program because it isn't as easy and can cut profit, but the program still exists.

I wonder if the Alabama farmers even know that it still exists.