12 CapitalPress.com
November 4, 2016
U.S., West Coast
ag workers hired *
Labor
CONTINUED from Page 1
The U.S. Department of
Labor certifi ed the hiring
of 13,641 H-2A workers in
Washington in 2016 com-
pared to 11,844 in 2015, ac-
cording to the state Employ-
ment Security Department.
With a larger apple crop,
Central Washington grow-
ers were short pickers during
harvest, and now shortages
are continuing in the yearlong
packing jobs. The shortage of
packers, forklift drivers and
other warehouse workers is
the same as last year — or
worse, said Reggie Collins,
general manager of Chelan
Fruit Cooperative.
“A bigger crop means
more shifts and more people
needed. We’re short about
100,” Collins said. “I’ve
talked to many shippers and
I don’t know of any full and
turning away help. We’re all
short.”
(Thousands of workers)
767.5
514.4
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Joaquin Melo Vaca and Maria Sanchez apply for packer jobs at Valicoff Fruit Co., near Wapato,
Wash., on Oct. 12. The company has been short of pickers and packers in August and September for
several years.
Several Southern states
have adopted E-verify, the fed-
eral government’s electronic
verifi cation of employment
eligibility. This culls out those
who don’t have the proper pa-
perwork or who are illegal. But
it’s disrupting the migratory
fl ow of workers from Florida
northward to other states such
as Michigan, he said.
Western problems
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
H-2A foreign guest workers take a break at Zirkle Fruit Co.’s CRO
Orchard, south of Rock Island, Wash., last April. They were training
tree limbs on young apple trees. Zirkle employs more H-2A work-
ers than any other fruit company in Washington.
H-2A workers, he said, they
would be hurting.
Growing numbers
The Washington Employ-
ment Security Department has
yet to compile its 2016 labor
numbers but said there was
an average of 54,124 season-
al ag workers each month in
the state in 2015, peaking at
90,782 in June. That compares
with an average of 53,667 per
month in 2014.
When year-round workers
are added, the monthly aver-
ages become 96,167 for 2015
and 93,228 for 2014.
The department’s last ag-
ricultural workforce report, in
2013, found the estimated av-
erage annual agricultural em-
ployment had grown by more
than 12 percent since 2007,
largely driven by increased
apple production. The depart-
ment once tracked worker
shortages through monthly
employer surveys but quit
three years ago when an ana-
lyst retired and funding was
cut.
The department was unable
to provide the number of ag-
ricultural jobs advertised this
year through its WorkSource
program.
According to the USDA
National Agricultural Statis-
tics Service, 737,300 seasonal
and year-round farmworkers
were employed nationwide
in 2015 at an average wage
of $12.54 per hour. Of that,
162,000 were in California at
an average of $13.05 per hour
and 68,500 were in Oregon
and Washington at an average
of $13.20 per hour.
Nationwide, 2015 employ-
ment numbers were higher
than in 2014 but less than the
preceding four years. The peak
was 777,300 in 2013.
Loss
Area in
detail
CONTINUED from Page 1
95
VALLEY
ADAMS
55
WASHINGTON
95
Ada
County
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BOISE
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Nampa
Idaho
Ore.
Boise
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84
OWYHEE
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20 miles
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having to farm up against
homes and having to deal with
the associated traffi c and other
pressure.
“We’re going to Canyon
County because of it,” she
said. “It’s easier to farm if
your neighbor’s a farmer.”
Peaceful Belly Farm is
a 60-acre organic operation
in the Dry Creek Valley area
north of Boise.
The iconic operation hosts
fi eld trips, grows food for the
food bank, farmers’ markets
and local restaurants, and rais-
es about $15,000 a year for lo-
cal schools through an annual
“pumpkins for the schools”
event.
Erskine said she feels like
none of that was taken into
consideration when the coun-
ty approved the Dry Creek
Ranch development.
Megan Bashan, Ada Coun-
ty’s community and regional
planner, said the develop-
ment was approved in 2010
776.3
777.3
508.5
532.2
531.7
748.8
er
ELMORE
Grand
View
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
but the county’s new com-
prehensive plan, which is be-
ing updated, places a great-
er emphasis on preserving
farmland.
During pubic outreach ef-
forts, the county heard a clear
message from residents that
they wanted to preserve farm-
land, she said.
National shortage
In some cases, the short-
age of workers appears to be
caused by an increase in the
demand for labor caused by
more crop production and not
a decrease in the supply of
workers.
Agricultural fi eld work is
hard, physical work and there-
fore many people just don’t
want to do it, many growers
say.
“There is an absolute short-
age and as the economy picks
up it will only get worse,” said
Kerry Scott, program manag-
er of masLabor in Lovingston,
Va., the largest provider of
H-2A (agricultural) and H-2B
(nonagricultural) guestwork-
ers in the nation.
“People will take jobs in
construction and other things.
The last place they will work
is seasonal agriculture,” he
said.
The company has grown
from 600 to 700 clients na-
tionwide two years ago to
900 to 1,000 today, providing
about 15,000 H-2A and H-2B
foreign workers, Scott said.
He cites several reasons
for fewer domestic farmwork-
ers. Mexican workers who be-
came legal residents through
the amnesty of 1986 have
aged and are retiring, and
their children have gone into
other occupations, he said.
Fewer seasonal agricul-
tural workers can or want to
move with the harvests so
shortages are more acute in
northern states such as Wash-
ington, he said. They also
look for longer-time employ-
ment.
The Northwest tree fruit
industry needs large numbers
of workers for relatively short
periods, making H-2A a logi-
cal option, he said.
“We heard it, which is why
(the plan) has it as one of our
top priorities,” she said.
The draft update of the
comprehensive plan includes
several policies to preserve
farmland.
That includes ensuring
development doesn’t restrict
adjacent agricultural opera-
tions, supporting the conser-
vation of prime ag land and
irrigated farmland and con-
sidering the economic impact
of ag operations in land use
decisions.
It also includes supporting
efforts, where viable, to bring
more land or farms into pro-
duction.
The draft plan will be
presented before the coun-
ty’s board of commissioners
during a public hearing Nov.
9.
The next day, the county’s
planning and zoning commis-
sion will host a public hear-
ing on an amendment to the
planned Dry Creek Ranch
development. Erskine plans
to show up to protest it and
expects a lot of others will
also.
Seasonal labor shortages
in California seemed worse
this year than in recent mem-
ory, said Tom Nassif, president
and CEO of Western Growers
in Irvine. The organization
represents farmers who grow
about half the produce in the
U.S.
“Every year we’ve been
having shortages, ranging
from 10 to 20 percent. I be-
lieve this year it maybe as high
as 25 percent,” Nassif said.
While up to 1,000 illegal
immigrants per day cross the
border near San Diego, many
Mexicans are becoming better
educated and staying in their
country for jobs, he said.
California’s shortage is
throughout the Central Coast
and Central Valley, mostly in
fruits and vegetables that are
harvested by hand, Nassif said.
In Oregon, the labor short-
age for landscape nursery
growers is as “severe as we’ve
seen it,” said Jeff Stone, ex-
ecutive director of Oregon
Association of Nurseries in
Wilsonville.
“We have nursery growers
who have emerged from the
Great Recession in a posi-
tion to produce and sell more
plants into the national mar-
ket — some growing by 20
percent or more — but will
grow only 2 percent due to the
unavailability of labor,” Stone
said.
It’s impacted greenhous-
es and blueberries, become a
true hardship and become the
association’s top issue politi-
cally, he said.
Nathan Duckwall, assis-
tant production manager of
Duckwall Fruit in Hood Riv-
er, Ore., said some growers in
that area had enough pickers
this year and others didn’t.
“Pickers are getting pick-
ier. They’re looking for eas-
ier and faster picking. They
shop for the best piece (wage)
rate,” he said.
In August, southwestern
Idaho fruit and winegrape
growers were paying higher
wages to try to keep workers.
Wolves
CONTINUED from Page 1
fi nal fi gure may be higher.
WDFW had planned to
eliminate the entire Profanity
Peak pack, which was preying
on cattle in the Colville Na-
tional Forest. The department
suspended the operation with
four wolves surviving.
WDFW said the chances
of attacks on livestock con-
tinuing were low because the
grazing season was ending.
The department did enter
the operation with a spending
limit, Martorello said. “It’s
something we think about, but
money wasn’t a factor in sus-
pending it,” he said.
The cost exceeded the
roughly $26,000 spent to
shoot one wolf in 2014 and
the $76,000 spent to shoot
seven wolves in 2012.
Cattle Producers of Wash-
ington President Scott Nielsen
said lethal-removal costs will
continue to be an issue.
“You have to remove the
problem wolves if you ever
want public acceptance in
712.5
737.3:
Up 3.5%
from 2014
478.7
506.8
82.8
79.8
85.8
82.3
170.3
160.5
158.3
163.3
73.8
160
68.5
162
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
*All labor, average yearly totals.
Source: USDA NASS
Growing pains
Valicoff Fruit is a small
company that is trying to grow
to stay competitive. It packs
about 1 million, 40-pound
boxes of apples annually and
250,000 to 300,000 boxes of
apricots, peaches and nectar-
ines.
It expects to double its ap-
ple volume in three years from
new, high-density plantings.
Three years ago the company
installed a new, effi cient high-
tech packing line to handle the
increase.
The company employs an
average of 130 year-round
orchard and packing workers.
The payroll increases to about
325 during peak harvest.
“Labor continues to get
tighter and tighter,” Valicoff
said.
This season, the company
lost pickers and packers to
hop growers, who paid more
and needed more workers to
tend a 5,000-acre overall ex-
pansion in Washington, he
said.
Hops paid around $15 per
hour. Piece rate for picking
apples sometimes equaled
that, depending on which va-
riety was being picked, he
said.
Workers returned when
hops were done at the end of
September, the midpoint of
the apple harvest.
The company also hired
40 H-2A workers, its fi rst in
several years. It rented apart-
ments for them and is building
housing for 73 H-2A workers
for next year.
Growers have to provide
housing and pay transporta-
tion costs between the job and
their home country. They also
have to pay workers a min-
imum of $12.69 per hour in
Washington and Oregon. To
obtain H-2A workers, grow-
ers must demonstrate to the
U.S. Department of Labor
that they can’t fi nd enough
domestic workers.
Valicoff, 29, obtained his
bachelor’s degree in construc-
tion management from the
University of Washington and
worked for a Seattle construc-
tion company for two years
before returning to Wapato
to join his father and uncle
in the family business. He is
concerned about labor for the
company’s future. Without
Rest of U.S.
Wash. and Ore.
California
Some are considering turning
to H-2A for the fi rst time next
year.
Bigger need
Compared to California,
Oregon and Idaho, Washing-
ton produces far more apples,
pears and sweet cherries. The
state grew $2.4 billion in ap-
ples in 2015 alone. Harvest
typically takes 35,000 or more
seasonal workers for cherries
and upward of 50,000 for ap-
ples and pears.
“We haven’t seen a ca-
tastrophe but we have a tight
labor supply and it continues
to tighten,” said Jon DeVaney,
president of the Washington
State Tree Fruit Association
in Yakima.
A rapid increase in H-2A
guestworkers in recent years
has kept a problem from be-
coming a disaster and is a
key indicator of the shortage,
DeVaney said.
Workers are less mo-
bile so rural growers have a
harder time getting workers
than those closer to cities
such as Pasco, Yakima and
Wenatchee, he said.
“Labor shortages are very
bad. In the last month, WA-
FLA has received many re-
quests from growers who
were not in H-2A who are
now building housing to be
ready for next year,” said Dan
Fazio, executive director of
WAFLA in Olympia. Former-
ly called the Washington Farm
Labor Association, the organi-
zation provided 67 percent of
the 11,844 H-2A workers in
Washington in 2015 through
contracts with growers.
The main need stretches
from May to October with
peaks and valleys within
that and greater competition
among crops for fall harvest,
Fazio said.
The supply of workers in
hops and pears has been the
tightest because the work
is the hardest and the crops
have among the shortest har-
vest periods, he said.
The availability of domes-
tic workers is shrinking every
year and pear, hop and as-
paragus growers are turning
more to H-2A than they have
in the past, he said.
WAFLA provided about
9,000 H-2A workers this
year, mostly in Washington
but also brought 500 to Or-
egon and 100 to Idaho. WA-
FLA did consulting work
in California, Nevada and
Michigan.
Mike Gempler, execu-
tive director of Washington
Growers League in Yakima,
said growers using H-2A did
Dan Wheat and Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
fairly well this season but
some who didn’t had diffi -
culty getting reliable workers
and had to leave fruit un-
picked.
Growers were “extremely
frustrated” by pickers who
would pick for a few days,
earn what they needed and
leave, Gempler said. Reli-
ability was a widespread is-
sue, he said.
“I spoke with people who
were really scared for this
season who were going to
try H-2A but didn’t and at
the last minute found enough
people. So it was a mixed
bag,” he said.
Those who did OK with
domestic help paid well and
offered fairly long employ-
ment, he said. Cherry and
apple growers had the most
shortages, and H-2A saved
the season, he said.
Zirkle Fruit Co. in Se-
lah hired 2,889 H-2A work-
ers in 2015 directly from
Mexico without using WA-
FLA. Stemilt Growers in
Wenatchee hired 750 H-2A
on its own this year, said
West Mathison, president.
“You need high-value fruit
to justify the expense. We’re
defi nitely growing our H-2A
and investing in (picking)
platforms” that make pick-
ers more effi cient, Mathison
said.
The picker shortage was
felt most during the Honey-
crisp, Gala and Golden har-
vests in August and Septem-
ber, he said.
Cass Gebbers, president
of Gebbers Farms, Brewster,
said the company hired about
1,800 H-2A workers this
year and had World Relief
refugees counted as domes-
tics. World Relief is an in-
ternational evangelical relief
program that works with the
federal government to settle
refugees.
The shortage was about
the same as last year, Geb-
bers said.
“You felt it but orchards
were getting picked,” he said.
Dave Taber, a grower near
the Washington-Canada bor-
der town of Oroville, said
everything was picked in a
timely manner there but only
because H-2A workers con-
stituted one-third of the labor
force.
“If it were not for H-2A,
we would have extreme prob-
lems,” Taber said. “Grow-
ers are happy to have it but
shocked with the expenses.
Orchard wages are so high
that it’s pulling from ware-
houses and warehouses are
short.”
“You have to remove the problem wolves if
you ever want public acceptance in this area.”
Scott Nielsen, Cattle Producers of Washington president
this area,” said Nielsen, a Ste-
vens County rancher. “To say,
‘never kill a wolf,’ that is not
a reasonable position.”
The state could authorize
ranchers to remove wolves
that are attacking livestock,
he said.
“We would work col-
lectively,” Nielsen said. “It
would cost the state nothing.”
Martorello said he did not
have any proposals for cut-
ting the cost of killing wolves.
He noted that WDFW spends
more on non-lethal measures
to prevent wolf attacks on
livestock, an expense ranch-
ers are expected to share.
The department’s two-year
budget adopted last year in-
cluded $750,000 for non-le-
thal measures.
Amaroq Weiss of the Cen-
ter for Biological Diversity
said the money spent shoot-
ing wolves would have been
better used to move cattle off
grazing allotments and paying
for supplemental feed.
“I think the vast majority
of the public would be very
supportive of doing some-
thing like that, instead of kill-
ing wolves,” she said.
Wolves are not federally
protected in the eastern one-
third of Washington. The
state’s policy calls for shoot-
ing wolves when measures
such as putting more people
on horseback around herds
fail to stop depredations.
Ranchers are eligible for
compensation for livestock
attacked by wolves. Ranchers
say many attacks go uncon-
fi rmed by the department and
that compensation doesn’t
address all the problems that
have been created by wolves
returning to Washington.
“I do not raise cows to
feed to the department’s pred-
ators,” Nielsen said. “That is
not responsible husbandry.”