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Illegal immigration: Will ag suffer? |
Crackdowns coming on the agricultural industry
hiring illegal immigrants |
By Amanda
Newman, Newberg Graphic
reporter
E-mail Amanda at
anewman@eaglenewspapers.com
|
Many immigrants, both legal and illegal, are employed in the
agriculture industry. However, recent changes in the industry beg
the question: how long will this be the case?
The controversy stems from a universal move toward mechanized
labor. Farms, orchards and vineyards around the world have begun to
employ mechanized harvesters and other equipment, affecting the
demand for hand labor.
As agriculture fueled
almost exclusively by hand labor disappears, various groups and
individuals have begun to question the effect that the new hybrid
system, a combination of human and mechanized labor, will have on
the immigrant work force and immigration as a whole.
Illegal immigrants in agriculture
State Employment Economist Art Ayre cited Pew Hispanic Center
statistics that estimate that 4 percent of unauthorized workers are
employed in the farming industry, equal to about 24 percent of
farmworkers across the country.
“The share may be higher in Oregon, due to its proximity to the
West Coast’s main transportation artery (I-5) that connects the West
Coast with Latin America, a major source of America’s illegal
immigrants, and also due to Oregon’s many labor-intensive crops,
such as various fruit crops and nursery crops,” Ayre said. “Illegal
immigrants may still make up a disproportionately large share of
farming workers.”
According to the Oregon Employment Department, 39,565 workers are
employed in agriculture-related fields in Yamhill County. Figures
for immigrant workers in the industry are not available at the
county level.
Mechanized labor in Yamhill County and Oregon
A main symbol of agriculture in Yamhill County is the vineyard. Due
to the delicate nature of wine grapes, hand cultivation has often
been regarded as a necessity. Not so anymore.
For last fall’s harvest, McMinnville’s Evergreen Vineyards
purchased a New Holland Braud grape harvester — the first in Yamhill
County and the Willamette Valley.
The mechanical harvester can do the work of 40 handpickers in a
fraction of the time and, after the initial cost of the machine, at
a fraction of the price.
According to Salem Brim Tractor’s Carl Capps, who sold the machine,
the cost of harvesting grapes can be 50 percent cheaper using the
mechanical harvester.
“Oregon is very behind in the use of mechanical harvesting, due to
the fact that we’ve had a ready supply of hand labor,” Capps said.
“We’re way behind Europe.”
He said that “hundreds” of mechanical harvesters are used in
California and there are “about 10,000 worldwide,” with heavy use in
New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa.
“I predict that I will sell five more (grape harvester) machines in
the next two years,” he said. In addition to the harvesters, Capps
has begun to sell mechanical leaf removers.
When Evergreen Vineyards bought the machine, Capps said, the
subject was a hot topic for bloggers in the area.
“People started blogging and saying, ‘We knew there was a way to
get rid of the need for immigration ... (now) we can live without
them.’ That’s a false statement. We will never live totally without
them,” he said. “(But) we might reduce the number of illegal
immigrants.”
Changing crops
Another possible effect of the push for mechanized labor is a
decrease in production of crops that cannot be mechanically
cultivated or harvested. One such crop, strawberries, has
experienced a significant decrease in recent years.
According to the Oregon Strawberry Commission, Oregon produced more
than 100 million pounds of strawberries in 1964. In 2000, production
dropped below 35 million pounds.
From 1996 to 2001, strawberry production in Oregon, the third
highest producer in the nation after California and Florida, was
reduced by 1,500 acres.
The Oregon strawberry industry experienced a similar slump in the
early 1970s, recovering completely by 1988. Whether the industry
will rebound again remains to be seen.
A 2001 Oregon Strawberry Commission publication said, “In recent
years, Oregon’s production of strawberries has dropped as farmers
are forced out of the strawberry business because of declining price
per pound and rising cost of production, (which) is up due in part
to the high minimum-wage requirements in the state.”
“Not having an ample work force of legal workers will cause a
further decline in the (strawberry) industry and ultimately will
eliminate the industry altogether,” said Don Schellenberg of the
Oregon Farm Bureau.
Capps said that a mechanized harvester has not been developed for
strawberries, but attributed the decline in production to a
decreasing demand.
Effects of mechanization on immigrants
McMinnville resident Jim Ludwick, president of Oregonians for
Immigration Reform, said that mechanization is important for the
future of agriculture.
“The U.S. has traditionally been a nation with a fairly low ratio
of workers to jobs,” he said. “As a result, companies had to
(increase wages) ... or mechanize. As it gets harder for illegal
aliens to come in and move about, it will make it harder for farmers
to rely on (hand) labor.”
Ludwick said that mechanization is beneficial to farmers, consumers
and workers. He explained that after the Bracero guest worker
program ended in 1964, California tomato farmers, who relied on
handpicking, were among the most impacted.
“Wages rose, farmers mechanized — for the first time, the workers
really started to make money,” he said. “And the price for the
consumer went down.”
“Oregon doesn’t have the scale or the research to make an immediate
leap,” Brent Searle, special assistant to the director of the Oregon
Department of Agriculture, told the Oregonian. “But in farming, it’s
always taken a crisis to make big changes.”
State Rep. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer), whose district includes Newberg
and St. Paul, was one of two Oregon legislators who joined in May a
national immigration reform coalition, State Legislators for Legal
Immigration. An advocate for “serious” immigration reform, she
helped introduce a package of immigration reform bills to the
legislature in February.
Regarding mechanized labor, Thatcher also cited the example of the
tomato farmers after the end of the Bracero program, saying, “I’m
hoping that’s what will happen here.”
Reasons for mechanization
Speed and economy may not be the only reasons farmers consider
mechanized labor. Ayre said he believes there are several factors
influencing each other in the switch from hand labor to
mechanization, ranging from a booming construction industry to the
value of the dollar.
“Stiff agricultural commodity price competition from foreign
countries and higher minimum wage rates, especially in the three
West Coast states, have encouraged farmers to shift their labor from
less productive workers, such as high school students, to more
productive migrant workers,” Ayre explained. “In some cases, they
may have shifted to different crops that require less manual labor.
“Also, the higher labor costs related to the higher minimum wage
rates have undoubtedly spurred the development and use of more
mechanized cultivating and harvesting. For example, automated
blueberry picking machines seem to be a fairly new innovation. As
automation technology improves, this undoubtedly shifts the demand
toward mechanization and away from manual labor, including migrant
labor.”
Ayre also cited a weakened U.S. dollar; numbers of agricultural
workers moving to better-paying, year-round construction jobs; and
increased enforcement of federal immigration laws as reasons for the
switch to mechanization. However, he said a downturn in the
construction industry could affect the situation.
Cause or effect?
Whether agricultural mechanization will lead to a decrease in
immigrant labor or whether, conversely, the decrease in laborers
will lead to mechanization is a source of contention.
According to Aeryca Steinbauer of CAUSA, Oregon’s immigrant rights
coalition, increased border security has resulted in agricultural
worker shortages across the Northwest.
“Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, are the backbone of
the agriculture and nursery industry,” she said. “(But) farmworkers
are some of the lowest paid and most vulnerable of illegal
immigrants.”
“I’m hearing people in the agricultural industry saying they’re
having trouble getting workers to harvest the crops,” Thatcher said.
“It looks like we’re duplicating (the post-Bracero program
situation).”
“There’s ample reasons to provide a guest worker program that
allows workers to come here legally,” Schellenberg said. “We want a
legal work force, we need a legal work force.”
However, he said that mechanization is “rather inevitable.”
That mechanized labor will impact immigrants seems inevitable.
However, the extent of that impact is up for debate.
Capps said he does not foresee that mechanized pickers will
completely take the place of handworkers. “There’s still a lot of
areas in Oregon that they plant vineyards on such steep hills you
can’t get a machine up them,” he explained. “There will always be
some demand for hand labor.” |
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From
Aug. 18, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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