Agricultural Workers
AGRICULTURAL WORKERS -- (Senate - September 29, 2006)
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, we have an opportunity today with the border fence bill and with the concurrence of Members of this body to help an industry that right now is in deep trouble, and that industry is American agriculture.
The reason it is in deep trouble is because it does not have the workforce to harvest the crops. This is true whether it is Florida, the State of Washington, Iowa, Idaho, California, Arizona, or any other agricultural State.
The reason for the shortage of workers is because agriculture dominantly depends on what is an undocumented or illegal workforce. The reason that is the case is because it has been found over the years that American workers simply will not do this work. Therefore, agriculture, the huge industry that we have in America, has come to depend on an undocumented workforce.
Just to give one example--and I wish I had a big chart--but this is the pear crop in Lake County, a farm owned by Toni Scully, and these mounds are rotting pears on the field because they cannot be harvested in time.
California is the largest agricultural State in the Nation. It is a $34 billion industry. It has 76,500 farms. California produces one-half of all of the Nation's fruits, vegetables, and nuts from only 3 percent of the Nation's farmland. If these products cannot be harvested--and it is late in the harvest season today--the price of fresh produce all over this Nation is going to rise.
We have an opportunity to do something about it. I am joined on the floor by Senator Larry Craig of the State of Idaho who is the main author of the AgJOBS Program. In the Judiciary Committee in the immigration bill, we revised AgJOBS and it was part of the Senate-passed immigration bill. Along with AgJOBS, we have reformed the agricultural guest worker program called H-2A. These two programs combine to give the farmers of America the certitude they need that there will, in fact, be a workforce able to harvest their crops, plant their crops, prune, cut, pack, and sort crops in this great country.
In my State we have roughly 350 different crops: lemons, tomatoes, raisins, lettuce, prunes, onions, cotton, and many others that are grown all across the State. Growers are reporting that their harvest crews are 10 to 20 percent of what they were previously. It is a disaster, and it will be a very costly disaster for the farm community as well as for the consumers of America. And it can be solved. We could move today to put the AgJOBS bill on the border fence bill. We all recognize it isn't germane postcloture, but the body could agree to include it because of the emergency circumstances that exist in agriculture States throughout the Nation today.
In my State we employ at least 450,000 people in the peak of the harvest, with farm workers progressing from one crop to the next, stringing together as much as 7 months of work. The estimate is that the season is falling short by 70,000 workers.
It is a very serious situation. Fields in Pajaro Valley in Santa Cruz County are being abandoned. Farmers can't find workers to harvest strawberry, raspberry, and vegetable crops. In the Pajaro Valley, one farmer reports he has been forced to tear out 30 acres of vegetables. He has about 100 acres compromised by weeds because there is nobody to weed the field. He estimates his loss so far to be $200,000. California and Arizona farmers say they need 77,000 workers during December to May to harvest vegetables, and they estimate the shortage will be 35,000 workers.
It is amazing to me that we can't do something about this by passing a bill that has been heard in the Judiciary Committee, that has been amended, that has been discussed over a period of years.
I would ask, if I might, the Senator from Idaho a series of questions, through the Chair. The first question is how long the Senator from Idaho has been working on the AgJOBS bill?
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator asking the question. I began to work with American agriculture and specifically western growers in the Pacific Northwest and in the Senator's State of California starting in about 1999 when they came to me and recognized, as they now clearly know, that they were beginning to rely on an illegal workforce of undocumented workers who were coming in because the law that exists, the H-2A, was so complicated and so bureaucratic, it was simply failing them. So it has been now at least 7 years that we have worked to comprise and build the AgJOBS legislation.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, if I may, through the Chair, is there a crisis in the State of Idaho?
Mr. CRAIG. There is a growing crisis in the State of Idaho. I would like, if the Senator from California doesn't mind, to submit for the RECORD a ``Dear Colleague'' letter that the Senator from California and I sent out late this month. It speaks of California and Idaho and Washington and Oregon. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
U.S. SENATE,
Washington, DC, September 22, 2006.
DEAR COLLEAGUE: Earlier this week, we went to the floor to highlight the desperate need for agricultural workers. In our colloquy, we discussed how American farmers are suffering, not because they don't have the crops and inventory, but because they don't have the workers to bring their crops to the market.
In fact, just this morning, a New York Times front page story proclaimed ``Pickers Are Few, and Growers Blame Congress.'' (copy attached) To be honest, we agree with their sentiment.
Farmers across this country have every reason to be angry and frustrated. There is simply no reason AgJOBS has not been enacted, and no reason it could not be passed now. The New York Times article is just one of dozens that have been written this summer highlighting the plight our farmers are facing.
California is the single largest agriculture state in the nation with over $34 billion in annual revenue and approximately 76,500 farms. And this year, growers in California are reporting that their harvesting crews are 10 to 20 percent of what they were previously. As the Times reported, ``California farms employ at least 450,000 people at the peak of the harvest, with farm workers progressing from one crop to the next, stringing together as much as seven months of work. Growers estimate the state fell short this harvest season by 70,000 workers.'' The impact is devastating ``fields go untended, and acres have to be torn up because there is no one to harvest them.'' (San Jose Mercury News 8/9/06)
Agricultural labor shortages affect not just California; in fact, they are impacting farms across the country, including harvesting of citrus in Florida, apples in New Hampshire, strawberries in Washington, and cherries in Oregon. In Wyoming, it has been reported that the labor shortage played a central role in the imminent closure of the $8 million Wind River Mushroom farm. The Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor reports that the number of farm workers in Idaho is down by 18 percent, and the Potato Growers of Idaho believes ``appropriate legislation, such as AgJOBS, is needed to keep the industry growing.'' (PGI news release, 9/12/06)
According to Cox News Service, ``One farmer in Cowlitz County in Washington state reported one-third of his blueberry crop rotted in the field for want of enough pickers,'' and a farmer in Oregon complained ``farmworkers should have been harvesting 25 tons of fruit per day from his Polk County cherry orchard. Instead, he could only hire enough temporary farmworkers to pick 6 tons.''
Most shocking, the American Farm Bureau has found ``that if Congress enacts legislation that deals only with border security and enforcement, the impact on fruit and vegetable farmers nationwide would be between $5 billion and $9 billion annually. Net farm income in the rest of the agricultural sectors would decline between $1.5 billion and $5 billion a year.''
Yet this is a problem we know how to solve, and can solve with your help. We have both introduced the AgJOBS bill as an amendment to the border fence bill now before the Senate. The AgJOBS program, previously passed by the Senate, is a bipartisan solution that would create a pilot program to allow certain longtime, trusted agricultural workers to legalize their immigration status in the United States while at the same time fixing the H2A visa program so farmers needing new temporary workers can bring them into this country through legal channels.
The time is long overdue to help American farmers get the labor they need. The opportunity is before us, and we must not turn our backs on this real problem that could be fixed with the enactment of the AgJOBS legislation. We urge you to support our efforts to get AgJOBS added to the border fence legislation and help American farmers get the assistance they need to bring their crops to market.
Sincerely,
Dianne Feinstein,
U.S. Senator.
Larry Craig,
U.S. Senator.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his response.
The fact is we have a pilot program that is part of the immigration bill that would provide over a 5-year period 1.5 million undocumented workers the opportunity to become documented, and provided they do agricultural work for a period of time, over time, to earn a green card. In discussing this with some Members they said they would agree if it were a temporary program. Well, it is a temporary program, because it sunsets in 5 years. I believe, and the Senator from Idaho will correct me if I am wrong, we would be prepared to change that sunset from 5 years to 2 years, or a time that would bring about concurrence from the Members.
But the point is there is a crisis out there. The point is we can solve that crisis now with this legislation. And the point is it is not new legislation. It has been authored, debated, discussed, heard now over a 6-year period. It has been refined. Both Senator Craig and I are convinced it will work. It was part of the immigration bill.
So what we are asking this body to do is essentially suspend the rule and allow this program to go into law at this time so the remainder of the harvest season and, more importantly, the planting season for winter vegetables and crops can be handled. If we do not do this, we will go well into next year without the agricultural labor present to sustain an agricultural industry in America in an adequate way, and the costs will be enormous.
I think somebody around here should begin to think of the consumer. I don't want to say to California families they are going to go in and buy heads of lettuce at $4 a head or more or broccoli at $5 a head or anything else because of a dramatic shortage, because farmers won't plant, because farmers can't pick, because farmers can't harvest, they can't sort, they can't pack, they can't can. That labor is needed, and year after year it has been documented that Americans will not do this kind of difficult, hot, stooped labor.
So this is an opportunity. It is an opportunity for us to respond to an industry of which we are all proud, and an industry which is in deep trouble at the present time.
Let me go on with a few other examples. I mentioned that California and Arizona farmers say they need 77,000 workers during the December to May to harvest, and they estimate they may be 35,000 workers short. The estimates from my State are that illegal immigrants make up at least one-fourth of the workforce and as high as 90 percent of the farm labor payroll. It is also estimated that for every agricultural job lost, we lose three to four other related jobs. I am told that in the Senator's State, farm workers are down 18 percent, and the potato growers of Idaho want AgJOBS passed to keep the industry growing.
In the State of Washington, in Cowlitz County, one-third of one farmer's blueberry crop rotted in the field because there were no pickers. Apple growers in the central part of the State were scrambling to find someone--anyone--to do the work of thinning the apple crop. Also in Washington, production at Bell Buoy Crab in Chinook, Pacific County is down 50 percent since April.
In Florida, Citrus Mutual notes: ``There is very little doubt we will leave a significant amount of fruit on the tree.'' Orange production in the State has been predicted to be the lowest since 1992 if the worst projections are realized. Six million boxes of oranges may well go unharvested in Florida this year because of a shortage of fruit pickers.
In Wyoming, they face the imminent closure of the $8 million Wind River Mushroom farm.
And in Oregon, farm workers should be harvesting 25 tons of fruit per day from the Polk County cherry orchards.
This is some indication. We have a bill, and that bill would provide the opportunity for an undocumented worker who has worked in agriculture for a substantial period of time--there are two different formulas in the bill--to go in to register, to pay a fine, to show their tax returns, to agree to pay taxes in the future, to get a temporary work card called a blue card, which would be biometric so that that worker is identified; it would eliminate fraud, and it would enable that worker, if they continue to work in agriculture for a period of years, to then gain a green card. It is a sound program. It will give farmers certainty. They will know there is an agricultural workforce, and it will involve people already in this country who are skilled, who are professional at farm work.
I don't know what it takes to show that there is an emergency. I think next year we would be ready, willing, and able to do this, but we will have lost another agricultural season, we will have lost a spring season, a summer season. I hope that someone will listen, that the leadership of this body will allow us, and I will call up--well, I can't do it now, but at an appropriate time I will call up the amendment that is at the desk.
I thank the Chair.
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