January 13, 2017
CapitalPress.com
7
Farm Bureau Convention
Farm Bureau president acknowledges differences with Trump
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
PHOENIX — Zippy Du-
vall, the slow-talking pres-
ident of the American Farm
Bureau Federation, acknowl-
edged he’s frustrated by the
Trump administration’s delay
in appointing an agriculture
secretary.
“We think it should have
been the first position he filled
rather than the last one,” Du-
vall said during a news confer-
ence as the annual convention
opened Jan. 8.
But Duvall, a Georgia
chicken and cattle producer,
said President-elect Donald
Trump has interviewed some
“tremendous candidates” and
said he has “full faith the new
president will pick the right
person.”
One of the candidates men-
Courtesy of American Farm Bureau Federation
American Farm Bureau Federation president Zippy Duvall ad-
dresses the opening session of the organization’s annual national
convention Feb. 8 in Phoenix. Duvall acknowledged that while
many farmers and ranchers voted for Donald Trump, some of the
president-elect’s positions run counter to agriculture’s interests.
tioned lately is Sonny Perdue,
a former Georgia governor
and a friend of Duvall. Perdue
would be a good choice, Du-
vall said.
The incoming president
posed something of a quan-
dary for producers. Rural res-
idents generally voted for him,
but some of Trump’s campaign
rhetoric on trade and immi-
gration ran counter to what
farmers and ranchers believe.
Many farmers employ work-
ers who are in the country ille-
gally, for example, and those
who export products to Asia
and elsewhere don’t want that
trade disrupted.
Duvall said he told the
Trump team early on that
agriculture disagreed with
Trump’s opinions on trade
agreements such as NAFTA
and the Trans-Pacific Partner-
ship, which Trump vowed to
scrap.
“We’re concerned about
Mr. Trump’s opinion on trade,”
Duvall said he told Trump’s
representatives. “He seems to
be negative on trade and ag is
very dependent on it.”
Duvall said illegal immi-
grants in many cases have
worked on farms for years
and are highly skilled and in-
grained in the community. The
government should adjust their
status and allow them to stay
if they are law-abiding people,
he said. “Morally we’ve got
to do the right thing,” he said,
adding they should be allowed
to “pay a fine and get on with
it.”
Duvall also said he’s not
worried if it turns out Trump
doesn’t know corn from cattle.
“If it does come up we will
educate him,” Duvall said.
“I’ve been in 33 states and
across the country and I know
where to take him.” Vice pres-
ident-elect Mike Pence, from
Indiana, is familiar with agri-
culture, Duvall said, and that
will help.
On another topic, Du-
vall said he’s excited about
Trump’s choice to head the
Environmental
Protection
Agency, former Oklahoma
Attorney General Scott Pruitt.
Many producers feel the EPA
has become an over-reaching
agency that is harming agri-
culture, while Pruitt under-
stands the limit of the laws
and will carry out the intent of
Congress. “I think he’s a real-
ly good guy who will make a
really good person in that po-
sition,” Duvall said.
Before meeting with re-
porters, Duvall delivered the
opening address. He said pro-
ducers need to speak up and
tell the public how they are
producing more food with
less water, less pesticides and
less plowing.
“We need to take back
the concept of sustainability,
because nobody works hard-
er on sustainability than the
American farmer and rancher,
and that’s you,” he said.
Arizona a land of contrasts for farming
Capital Press
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Burr and Rosella Mosby farm row crops near Auburn, Wash. They
wonder why the guestworker issue has to be so complicated.
Ag labor shortages
defy easy fixes
Capital Press
PHOENIX — Washington
state vegetable farmers Burr
and Rosella Mosby shifted
in their seats and furrowed
their brows as they listened to
a panel discuss immigration
issues during a session at the
American Farm Bureau Fed-
eration’s annual convention.
USDA economist Tom
Hertz was providing some
troubling numbers for the
Mosbys and other farmers
who depend on workers to
plant, prune, pick and pack
their crops. “We hand-har-
vest everything,” Burr Mosby
said.
Mexican immigration to
the U.S. has been declining
since 2007, Hertz said, and
the number of Mexican-born
people in the U.S., legally or
illegally, has dropped from 13
million to an estimated 11.7
million in that time. The crop
workers remaining are getting
older: 14 percent were 55 or
older in 2013-14, compared to
11 percent in 2007-09.
That’s a concern because
the ability to do manual la-
bor declines with age, he
said. Also, the percentage of
workers who are settled in
one spot, not migrating from
job to job, has increased to 84
percent from 74 percent.
Hertz said a USDA study
compared two immigration
reform options. Expanding
H-2A ag worker visas would
add 156,000 workers to the
farm labor workforce, he
said, while cranking up de-
portations would remove an
estimated 5.8 million unau-
thorized workers, 40 percent
of the ag workforce, over 15
years.
He said removing workers
would force producers to pay
even higher wages to those
left behind, at a time when
labor costs as a percentage
of farm expenses are leveling
off.
The Mosbys don’t believe
expanding the H-2A program
is a cure for agriculture’s la-
bor shortage.
“I just don’t know why it’s
so complicated,” Burr Mosby
said after the panel discussion.
Mosby Farms grows row
crops on 350 acres in the
Green River Valley near Au-
burn and sells to Safeway,
Kroger and wholesalers. The
farm employs about 100 peo-
ple during the “heat of the
battle,” a four- to six-month
season. The Mosbys said they
pay $11 to $12 an hour for ba-
sic laborers, more for supervi-
sors.
Getting more workers
through the H-2A program
would cost more. The Mosbys
said they would be required to
pay $12.47 an hour, provide
housing and pay for transpor-
tation to and from Mexico.
Mosby, a first-generation
farmer, said his farm’s income
went down this year by 15
cents to 25 cents per box of
produce. “Our insurance nev-
er goes down,” he said.
Mosby said a simplified
guest worker visa would be a
better system. He said Mexi-
can workers, assuming they
pass criminal checks, should
be allowed to come work on
his farm, stay with relatives
who are already here, and
then return home after a set
period of time.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Cecil Pratt at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention
in Phoenix, Ariz. The Yuma County, Ariz., farmer receives a water
allocation of 4 acre-feet per year.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
A Frank Lloyd Wright home
near the site of this year’s
American Farm Bureau con-
vention in Phoenix.
human scale and fleets of sin-
gle-occupant cars swerving
aggressively across six-lane
freeways that lead from one
mall or gated community to
the next. Neighborhood com-
mercial development is spotty,
forcing many people to drive
everywhere. Chain restaurants
predominate, long city blocks
discourage walking and only
fools with a death wish would
venture out on a bicycle.
Yet Phoenix and Arizona
aren’t so easily pigeonholed.
The Arizona Republic news-
paper reported in June that ur-
ban farming is “taking root” in
Phoenix.
The local food movement
is taking hold as well. Taco
Guild, a restaurant near down-
town Phoenix, opened three
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By ERIC MORTENSON
PHOENIX — Cecil Pratt,
who farms in Yuma County, in
the southwest corner of Arizo-
na, recites the numbers from
memory.
His farm is 25 miles from
the California border and 25
miles from Mexico. The coun-
ty receives an average of 3.23
inches per year. In his lifetime,
nearly 52 years, he has seen it
snow once. The temperature
dropped into the teens for five
hours, once.
Yet from roughly Thanks-
giving to March, when the
mean temperature is 73 de-
grees, Yuma County becomes
the salad bowl of America.
Under irrigation, vast fields
blossom with all kinds of let-
tuce, baby spinach and brassi-
cas that become the country’s
winter greens.
“It’s been that way for
years,” says Kevin Rogers,
president of the Arizona Farm
Bureau.
But the state’s image is
parched desert and cactus. The
average temperature in Phoe-
nix, “Valley of the Sun” after
all, cranks over 100 degrees
in June, July, August and Sep-
tember. “Salad bowl” doesn’t
compute.
“What we need is snow in
the Rocky Mountains,” says
Pratt, the Yuma County farm-
er. Melting snow feeds the
Colorado River system, and
Arizona and other states sip it
nearly dry. Native American
tribes have the oldest water
rights, but farmers like Pratt
are next in line. His allocation
is 4 acre-feet per year, and let-
tuce takes 2, as does wheat.
Growing something like al-
falfa takes 6 to 8 acre-feet of
water — but results in a dozen
cuttings.
“We all have rotation crops
— wheat or cotton — but pro-
duce dominates it,” Pratt said.
Various researchers have
warned for years that Arizona
will run out of water, but it
hasn’t happened yet.
Meanwhile, the sprawling
Phoenix metro area, which
includes Tempe, Scottsdale,
Mesa, Chandler and other
cities, added nearly a million
people from 2000 to 2010,
when the Census counted 4.2
million residents.
The city’s rapid growth is a
land-use planner’s nightmare,
with ponderous, dun-colored
buildings looming beyond
years ago in an old church
and looks like it was dropped
in from Portland — complete
with hipster customers. Man-
ager Sam Cavallaro said the
restaurant makes a point of
buying local products when-
ever possible, and serves a
collection of Arizona beer and
liquor.
The warm winter weath-
er continues to draw retirees
and famed architect Frank
Lloyd Wright may have been
the first snowbird. He spent
winters in Arizona from 1937
until his death in 1959, and
his Taliesin West home and
architectural training camp
in Scottsdale are open for
tours. Wright’s spare, organ-
ic architecture, with building
lines that mimic the land-
scape, is reflected in many of
the homes in the area.
And 95 miles north of
Phoenix, near spectacular Se-
dona, are reminders that Ari-
zona’s first residents shared a
bond with Pratt and his fellow
Yuma County farmers to the
south.
A cliff dwelling, built by
the Sinagua people about
1200 A.D. and now part of the
Montezuma Castle National
Monument, hugs the bend of
Beaver Creek. The Sinagua
used the creek to irrigate their
crops, beans and corn.
ROP-2-2-1/#14
By ERIC MORTENSON
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