August 31, 2018
CapitalPress.com
9
Growers say despite good pay it’s work Americans don’t want to do
WORKERS from Page 1
in Mexico to work.
It’s work most Americans don’t
want to do, growers say.
The number of H-2A workers is
growing rapidly because domestic
workers are becoming more scarce.
Industry and government sources es-
timate 50 to 70 percent of domestic
farmworkers already in the U.S. are
illegal immigrants. It costs growers
more to hire H-2A guestworkers but
they represent an increasingly rare
commodity for farmers — a legal,
dependable workforce.
Farmers need that, given the value
of their crops. The annual farmgate
value of Washington apples alone is
$2.4 billion and the value of other
labor-intensive crops throughout the
nation is billions of dollars more.
During the first three quarters of
fiscal year 2018, Washington farmers
hired 20,070 H-2A workers, accord-
ing to the U.S. Department of La-
bor. That compares to 15,611 hired
during the first three quarters of 2017
and 18,535 for all of last year.
Washington farmers are in third
place behind their counterparts in
Florida and Georgia in hiring H-2A
workers in the first three-quarters of
this year. Before the harvest is fin-
ished, they may hire nearly 30,000,
according to the farm labor associ-
ation WAFLA. That would be an in-
crease of about 60 percent from last
year.
Zirkle Fruit Co. of Selah, Wash.,
is the second largest single employer
of H-2A workers in the nation, hir-
ing 4,169 for the first three-quarters
of this year.
Nationally, 193,603 H-2A work-
ers have been certified for the first
three-quarters of 2018. That’s up
from 160,084 for the same period in
2017 and about 8 percent of all farm-
workers. The final 2018 tally will
surpass the 200,049 that were hired
for all of 2017.
The need for guestworkers has
spiraled upward during the past 13
years. In 2005, the total number of
H-2A guestworkers hired nationwide
was 48,336. The average length of
stay for H-2A guestworkers in 2016
was 6.4 months.
Meager roots
Bailon was born, raised and still
lives in Francisco Javier Mina, a vil-
lage of about 950 people in the state
of Durango midway, between the
U.S. border and Mexico City.
The village is 7,000 feet above
sea level, and most residents make
their living hand-picking beans and
corn for 200 pesos — about $10.50
— per day, Bailon says. The medi-
an education there is six years of
school. Bailon attended school for
nine years.
Of the town’s 316 dwellings, 98
percent have electricity, 1.6 percent
have piped water, 74 percent have
toilets, 96 percent have televisions,
55 percent have cars, 3.7 percent
have computers and 0.4 percent
have internet access, according to
the census website en.mexico.pueb-
losamerica.com. Twenty households
have dirt floors and five have just
one room.
Bailon’s parents have always
picked beans and corn for a living,
and he and his three siblings have
done the same.
“We had to work and help our
parents from as early as we could
for no wages,” he said. “It’s what we
had to do to survive. We always had
food but not a lot.”
Antonio de Jesus Bailon carefully
transfers his picker bag of Gala apples
into a bin so he doesn’t bruise them.
He picks a 700-800-pound bin of ap-
ples in one hour, earning $25 per hour.
Grower perspective
Photos by Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Antonio de Jesus “Chuy” Bailon, front left, carries his picking ladder along with other crew members as they shift from one
block of Gala apples to another at Griggs Orchards in Orondo, Wash.
250,000
Certified U.S.
H-2A workers
200,049: Up 20.7% from 2016
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
Dan Wheat and Alan Kenaga/
Capital Press
193,603*
48,336
0
2005 ’06 ’07 ’08 ’09 ’10 † ’11 † ’12 ’13 ’14 ’15 ’16 ’17 2018*
*As of Q3
† Decline due to Obama administration revoking Bush administration rule changes.
Good money
Bailon and his wife, Carolina,
have two daughters, ages 11 and 9,
and a son who is just a few months
old.
Five years ago, he learned of the
H-2A program through other work-
ers and decided it was worth leaving
home to make more money.
He worked for Evans Fruit Co. in
Mattawa orchards his first two years
and now is in his third year at Griggs
Orchards in Orondo. He was recruit-
ed through WAFLA.
He came in mid-March to prune
and train trees and will leave in
mid-November when the last apples
are picked. He will return home in
time for several weeks of the local
bean and corn harvest.
For pruning and thinning in
Orondo this season, he earned the
H-2A minimum wage of $14.12 per
hour and on piece rate during cherry
harvest made $20 per hour.
Piece rate is a rate of pay based on
the amount of fruit picked. It’s an in-
centive for fast work. At Griggs Or-
chards the rate was $6 per 18-pound
bucket for Rainier cherries and $3.25
for red cherries. The piece rate is $25
per bin for apples. Bailon averages
one bin per hour, so he’s making $25
per hour, or $200 per day.
“This is good. You don’t really
make money in Mexico,” he said.
Day’s work done, Antonio de Jesus Bailon, right, and
roommate Raul Ruiz, left, watch soccer on TV in their
four-man bunkroom.
At the minimum H-2A wage,
he makes more in one hour than he
makes during an entire day in Mex-
ico. At the apple piece rate he earns
about 19 times more per day.
Bailon said he earned $18,000 on
H-2A last year, used about $1,800
of that to live on while in the U.S.,
mostly for food, and took the rest
home to his family, including his
parents. He expects to make the
same amount this year.
The H-2A pay has enabled him to
buy more clothes for his family, and
now he’s building a new house.
“But it’s hard being away from
family,” he said. “It’s lonely. I do it
because we need the money.”
He says the H-2A job has enabled
him to rise to the middle class. Pre-
viously, he considered himself to be
poor. He hopes to continue in H-2A
as long as he can and feels fortunate
to have the opportunity.
Changes ahead?
Bills in Congress propose replac-
ing the H-2A program with a new
H-2C program in which growers no
longer would have to provide hous-
ing and transportation between the
job and guestworkers’ country of
origin. They could also pay a lower
minimum wage.
Even if he had to pay for trans-
portation and housing and accept a
lower minimum wage, Bailon said
Pacific Northwest remains mired in drought that
has led to massive wildfires, low stream flows
DROUGHT from Page 1
John Day Basin to almost 80 percent
along the South Coast.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has de-
clared a drought emergency in nine
counties: Lincoln, Douglas, Klam-
ath, Lake, Harney, Grant, Wheel-
er, Baker and Morrow. Ken Stahr,
surface water program manager for
the Oregon Water Resources Depart-
ment, said he has been surprised by
how widespread this year’s drought
is.
“I think we saw some of this
coming over the winter,” Stahr said,
referring to low mountain snowpack
and rapid snowmelt in May. “We had
kind of a late series of storms where
we thought it may help. But by May,
it was gone.”
Ivan Gall, administrator for the
Field Services Division at OWRD,
works with the 21 local watermas-
ters across the state. He said they
have largely had to begin regulating
water deliveries sooner, curtailing
junior users to satisfy senior water
rights holders.
“We’ve had to cut deeper into the
list of junior users more quickly than
compared to normal precipitation
years,” Gall said.
It is a similar situation in Wash-
ington state, which is also seeing be-
low-average flows in nearly half of
all rivers and streams. Temperatures
have also averaged about 3 degrees
above normal statewide in July,
making the period between May and
June the fourth-warmest on record.
Jeff Marti, drought coordina-
tor for the Washington Department
of Ecology, said the state is going
through a significant precipitation
deficit, which is being most felt in
the west and southwest portions of
the state.
“We have some rivers that have
been establishing record low flows
for this day of the year throughout
the summer,” Marti said.
The Department of Ecology has
been curtailing water for some 88 us-
ers in the Chehalis River Basin since
late May and early June. State offi-
cials, however, have not gone as far
as to declare a drought emergency.
Drought conditions are creeping
east into Idaho as well. About 70
percent of the state is listed as “ab-
normally dry,” and the remaining 30
percent is in “moderate drought.”
The National Oceanic and At-
mospheric Administration’s Climate
Prediction Center is calling for an in-
creased likelihood of more unseason-
ably warm weather across all three
states for the next three months, and
likely below-average precipitation in
most of Oregon and Washington.
The longer drought lingers, the
more it will heighten anxiety over
reservoir storage heading into next
year, Marti said.
“You could have a vast recovery,
or there could be some anxiety if
we have a sub-par snowpack year,”
he said. “You like to have good car-
ryover. It gives you a little cushion
heading into next year.”
Philip Mote, director of the Ore-
gon Climate Change Research Insti-
tute at Oregon State University, said
based on forecasts, the Northwest
drought will not be easing up soon,
and in fact more areas in eastern
Washington may actually start de-
veloping more severe conditions.
In many ways, Mote said this
year is reminiscent of 2015, anoth-
er drought year amplified by low
snow and spring precipitation. Some
coastal streams in Oregon have low-
er flows this year than they did in
2015, Mote said.
“For anything relying on snow-
pack, that was a difficult year,” Mote
said.
he would still work in the U.S. be-
cause he could still make more mon-
ey than in Mexico.
He said he doesn’t follow con-
gressional debates about guestwork-
er programs or immigration.
“In my opinion, everything is
pretty good the way it is now,” he
said. “I’d like to keep things the way
they are.”
He knows people who have im-
migrated to the U.S. illegally, but
Bailon said he didn’t because the
“risk is high and I’d rather do things
the right way.”
At Griggs Orchards, picking
starts shortly after day break and
ends by mid-afternoon.
A relatively new bus carries the
workers between the orchard and the
bunkhouse that houses 20 workers
in five rooms. Each room has four
bunks and a television. There’s also
a common kitchen and eating area.
Bailon and his roommates watch
TV or sometimes walk to the nearby
Orondo School to play soccer.
One of the roommates, Raul
Ruiz, 25, previously picked apples
in the state of Durango.
“It gave me experience but we
don’t make as much picking there,”
he said.
Bailon lives in a different part of
Durango and didn’t have the oppor-
tunity to pick apples before coming
to the U.S.
John Griggs, co-owner of Griggs
Orchards, says this is his third year
of hiring H-2A workers.
“There’s not a snowball’s chance
in hell we would get our crops
picked without it,” Griggs said of
H-2A. “It’s just the lack of domestic
workers. It keeps getting tighter and
tighter every year. We really noticed
the crunch a few years ago in cher-
ries and last year in apples as well.”
He hired 36 H-2A workers his
first year, 60 last year and 104 this
year out of his total peak workforce
of 245 during cherry harvest in June
and July. Most of his workers are
still domestic, but the number keeps
shrinking.
Bailon and Ruiz are part of a
crew of 20 H-2A guestworkers that
came in March and will stay into
November. Griggs hired 84 more in
mid-May who stayed into July for
cherries and then went to work at
Valicoff Fruit Co. in Wapato, Wash.
On June 19, the workers were in
their first few days of picking Griggs’
Orondo Ruby cherries. They were
all young men in their late teens and
early 20s. They were intent on their
work and didn’t talk or sing, as ex-
perienced domestic pickers often do.
But they were slow.
“They were first year out of Oax-
aca and were very quiet. They want-
ed to do a good job. They were good
workers, just not fast in that first
week in cherries,” Griggs said.
“Picking cherries is a tough thing,
especially when you are picking for
color and size right out of the gate,”
he said. “But they were getting the
knack after the first week and were
eager to learn. I was impressed with
them and would like to have them
back. They all asked to come back
next year.”
Griggs paid $10 per night per
worker to house the 84 in the Wash-
ington Growers League’s Brender
Creek farmworker housing in Cash-
mere.
Foreign guestworkers cost Griggs
more, not just in transportation and
housing but he has to pay his domes-
tic workers the same minimum wage
he pays those on H-2A visas and of-
fer housing to those who live beyond
a 50-mile radius. He also has to ad-
vertise for domestic workers through
the first half of the H-2A contract.
“We got a few that way during
cherries but very few, maybe 15,”
he said. “The downside is the cost
and productivity of it the first couple
of years. But having a stable, legal
workforce outweighs all of that.”
Assistance plan includes direct payments
to farmers, government food purchases
USDA from Page 1
Direct payments to producers
will be capped at $125,000 per
person, and payments could go out
as early as mid-September, Bill
Northey, USDA undersecretary for
farm production and conservation,
said.
Direct payments will be pro-
vided to cotton, corn, dairy, pork,
soybeans, sorghum and wheat pro-
ducers. Farmers need to establish
eligibility with the Farm Service
Agency and will be paid a certain
rate for each commodity for 50
percent of their actual production,
he said.
“We want to make it simple for
producers but also effective,” he
said.
Total payments in this round of
assistance are expected to range
from about $3.6 billion for soy-
bean producers to $96 million for
corn producers.
Wheat producers are expected
to get $119.2 million.
USDA’s Agricultural Market-
ing Service will administer the
food purchases and distribution
leg of the assistance. Purchases
will be spread out over several
months in four phases and many
will be different than what USDA
normally purchases, reflecting the
specific products that are being
hit with the tariffs, Greg Ibach,
USDA undersecretary for market-
ing and regulatory programs, said.
The agency will guard against
displacing the Section 32 pur-
chases it already makes for nutri-
tion-assistance programs, he said.
More than 30 different products
will be purchased, including fruits,
nuts, livestock products, legumes,
potatoes, rice and sweet corn. Top
expected purchases are about $559
million for pork, $111.5 million
for sweet cherries, $93.4 million
for apple and $85 million each for
dairy and pistachios.
USDA also expects purchas-
es of $2.1 million for hazelnuts,
$44.5 million for potatoes and
$63.3 million for almonds.
The Foreign Agricultural Ser-
vice will administer the trade-pro-
motion assistance. It will be a
cost-share program and more
flexible and more streamlined
than existing market-development
programs. Assistance will likely
begin being distributed in early
2019, Ted McKinney, USDA un-
dersecretary for trade and foreign
agricultural affairs, said.