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.
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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
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