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June 10, 2016 CapitalPress.com 5 Former ICA chief dies Labor in short supply in Central Wash. By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press Sara Braasch Schmidt, 45, former executive vice pres- ident of the Idaho Cattle As- sociation, died June 5 at her home. Braasch Schmidt first worked at ICA as its special projects director from 1992 to 1995. She returned as ICA’s executive vice president in 1997 and served at its helm until 2003. “To say that Sara was bril- liant is not an overstatement,” said Karen Williams, ICA nat- ural resources policy adviser. She was also a natural-born leader, and that was evident in the way she could take charge of any situation, whether in a meeting, a policy discussion, or in a social setting. Those two attributes made her a “force to reckon with” in lead- ing the Idaho Cattle Associa- tion, Williams said. “It seemed as though she was always several steps ahead of everyone else in figuring out solutions to com- plex problems facing our in- dustry,” she said. She started as executive vice president in the year gray wolves were reintroduced to the state. Her political experi- ence (working for Sen. Larry Craig in Washington, D.C.) and innate problem-solving skills were keenly needed during that time and enabled her to navigate the industry to an unprecedented practical approach to raising livestock in the presence of a federal- ly-protected predator — and ultimately paved the way for the species delisting, Wil- liams said. She was also behind the Beef Cattle Environmen- tal Control Act, which was another unprecedented and practical approach to federal overreach, wherein the state gave regulatory authority of beef CAFOs to the state rather than EPA, she said. “Wherever Sara led ICA, from the state Legislature to NCBA, she positioned the association to be the respect- ed voice for our industry, both in state and nation- wide,” she said. Sara “These types Braasch of proactive Schmidt actions, which Sara accom- plished over and over, left our industry better prepared to face and overcome its future challenges. And she did it all with that signature smile on her face,” she said. “I consider it a great hon- or to have learned from the best,” she added. After serving as executive director, Braasch Schmidt served as executive director of the Idaho Rural Partner- ship, regional assistant chief of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and ad- ministrator for the Idaho Soil and Water Conservation Com- mission. In 2011, she started her own consulting company, Summit Business Solutions in Meridian, said Britany Hurst, ICA communications director. After a long battle with breast cancer, her death was not unexpected but still shocking, Hurst said. A funeral mass will be said Monday, June 13, beginning at 11 a.m. at St. Mark’s Cath- olic Church in Boise. A cele- bration of life will be held at 1 p.m., immediately follow- ing a luncheon at St. Mark’s. A private family interment in McCall will be held at a later date. Services are under the direction of Accent Funeral Home in Meridian. Memorial contributions can be made to the Sara Braasch Schmidt Endow- ment designated within the Idaho FFA Foundation or to the Heartland Hunger and Re- source Center in McCall. By DAN WHEAT Capital Press WENATCHEE, Wash. — Domestic cherry pickers and H-2A visa foreign guest- workers used in apple thin- ning are in short supply this season in Central Washington orchards. With cherry harvest in full swing in Mattawa and the Royal Slope, a lot of “Help Wanted” signs have gone up, said Mike Robinson, general manager of Double Diamond Fruit Co. in Quincy. “People with good crops are not having trouble find- ing workers. Those with light crops are not having such good luck. It doesn’t matter what they’re offering to pay,” Rob- inson said. Robinson is frustrated by not being able to get enough H-2A workers in a timely fashion for company orchards. They arrive two weeks late and, he said, he’s waited as long as two months past the date of need for some. “You change your plans. Instead of (hand) blossom thinning, you do more chemi- cal thinning,” he said, adding that better yield and return bloom is achieved by hand thinning apples. Robinson said he’s heard that federal agencies approv- ing H-2A applications are swamped and that the Obama administration doesn’t like the H-2A program. “I don’t know which is true,” he said. Zirkle Fruit Co. in Selah, Wash., is one of the largest tree fruit companies in the state. It hired 2,889 H-2A workers in 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. For 11 years, Zirkle Fruit has hired its H-2A workers directly rather than going through WAFLA, formerly the Washington Farm Labor Asso- ciation. WAFLA provided 67 per- cent of the 11,844 H-2A work- Dan Wheat/Capital Press Elias Pablo picks Tieton cherries at Lyall Orchards in Desert Aire, Wash., on May 25. Growers with light crops are having trouble finding enough pickers, and many foreign guestworkers are arriving late. ers in Washington last season through contracts with grow- ers. Harold Austin, director of orchard administration at Zirkle Fruit, said the compa- ny is behind in getting H-2A workers and that the process seems to grow more difficult every year. U.S. State Department visa approvals at consulates in Mexico now are taking three days, twice the time they once did, he said. That means appli- cants need to arrive at consul- ates on Monday or Tuesday so they are not stuck there over a weekend, he said. “It’s more difficult each year to find domestic workers and more companies and even smaller growers are using WA- FLA,” Austin said. Fewer workers migrate from California and Zirkle will continue using H-2A because “there’s not a lot of other op- tions,” he said. McDougall & Sons Inc. in Wenatchee uses about 700 H-2A workers and has been getting them on time, said Scott McDougall, co-presi- dent. In combination with its year-around domestic labor force, the company is doing well, he said. WAFLA has been dealing with federal delays of H-2A applications since Febru- ary. On April 21 the Ameri- can Farm Bureau Federation warned that H-2A delays in more than 20 states were fast approaching crisis proportions and threatening crops. Much of the problem was caused by the U.S. Department of Labor shortening the time for non-agricultural H-2B-visa applications, resulting in three- fourths of the applications arriving Jan. 2, flooding the agency, Kerry Scott, program manager of masLabor in Lov- ingston, Va., said in April. “There was no way to keep up and they didn’t want to. They wanted to make it as difficult as possible, knew it would cause chaos and it did,” Scott said. By April the backlog was largely resolved, he said. MasLabor is the largest provider of H-2A and H-2B workers in the nation and pro- vides about 500 H-2A workers to Washington state growers. On May 9, the U.S. Cit- izenship and Immigration Services announced it would begin transmitting applicant information electronically to the Department of State to speed up procedures. On June 1, WAFLA CEO Dan Fazio said it got 90 per- cent of the 5,000 H-2A work- ers it needed for Washington growers in May but the process remains slow and difficult. Timelines are too tight for the one state and four federal agencies involved, he said. What once was a 60-day pro- cess now takes longer because of greater scrutiny by the De- partment of Labor and USCIS, he said. “We have three agencies that have to do approval in the last 30 days or less and are not able to do so,” Fazio said. USCIS still will not ac- cept scanned signatures and is using regular mail instead of email to ask why the same person’s signature appears on some documents from multi- ple companies, he said. Cherries escape first heat wave Labor top concern By DAN WHEAT Capital Press Dan Wheat/Capital Press Teresa Pascul picks Tieton cherries at Lyall Orchards in Desert Aire, Wash., May 25. Two weeks later pickers and packers are in short supply. boxes by June 7, when in a normal year, they would just be starting. The crop is forecast at 18.3 million and may finish in July instead of August. Four days of hot weather, June 4 through 7, so far don’t appear to have harmed quality, but could have had they con- tinued, Thurlby said. Growers are finishing ear- ly varieties — Chelan, Tieton and Santina — and moving into Bing which is 30 percent lighter than normal. “Fewer Bings on the trees gives trees more vigor and helps fruit stand up better to heat,” Thurlby said. But pickers don’t like few- er cherries per tree because they have to keep moving, working harder, Pepperl said. Prolonged heat reduces cherry firmness and picking hours, he said. Stemilt prefers cherries not be picked above 85 de- grees to preserve quality. Thurlby called quality “vintage,” said cherries are “gorgeous” at 10-row (large) and larger and show no heat stress. Last year, 10 days of hot weather in mid-June followed by a one-week cool down followed by another seven or eight days of extreme heat, damaged quality and com- pressed the harvest, glutting the market after the Fourth of July and depressing prices. 24-4/#7 WENATCHEE, Wash. — Cherries are in full harvest throughout Central Wash- ington with excellent quality despite hot weather. Lack of labor is the big concern. “Labor in packing sheds is suitable but will get better when school gets out. There’s definitely a shortage in the or- chards,” said Roger Pepperl, marketing director at Stemilt Growers LLC, Wenatchee, the nation’s largest sweet cherry producer. Schools in the Wenatchee area finish June 10. Stemilt is counting on high school and college students to help in warehouses. Stemilt is running double shifts at it’s two cherry pack- ing plants which takes 1,500 people. The company is tight but doing OK using H-2A-vi- sa foreign guestworkers in company owned or managed orchards where 65 to 70 per- cent of Stemilt’s cherry vol- ume comes from versus grow- er-members, Pepperl said. B.J. Thurlby, president of the industry promotional or- ganization, Northwest Cher- ry Growers in Yakima, said a grower told him he might not get his crop picked because he can’t find pickers. Another grower he talked to is paying a high piece rate for pickers plus a $10 per bin bonus if they stay through harvest, he said. “I’m hearing warehouses are paying over $10 to $11 per hour. My daughter just graduated from high school and yesterday finished her first 14-hour shift in a shed. She came home with that look on her face (a long day),” Thurlby said. “Labor is short but there’s money to be made. Growers hope pickers will come up from California when school gets out there at the end of this week (June 10),” he said. Picking started record early on May 18 in Mattawa. A re- cord 670,000, 20-pound boxes of cherries were shipped by the end of May, Thurlby said. Shipments reached 2 million 24-4/#7