B4
AG DAY
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
H-2A cutoff averted as virus adds to labor worries
By Dan Wheat
and George Plaven
EO Media Group
A potential crisis pre-
venting H-2A-visa agricul-
tural foreign guestworkers
from crossing the Mexican
border into the U.S. because
of coronavirus concerns has
been avoided.
On March 16, the
U.S. Embassy in Mexico
announced it would suspend
processing routine immi-
grant and non-immigrant
visas for border crossings on
March 18 in an effort to curb
the spread of coronavirus.
H-2A visas are non-im-
migrant agricultural work
visas good for up to 10
months.
U.S. farm labor asso-
ciations worked with the
USDA and State Department
and by late March 17 they
received assurances H-2A
visas and H-2B non-agricul-
tural visas would continue to
be processed.
Dan Fazio, executive
director of Wafla, a Wash-
ington-based farm labor
association, said returning
H-2A and H-2B workers
will be processed and most
consulates are continuing to
process new and returning
workers.
USDA and the State
Department are working on
a protocol so all H-2A-visa
applicants can be processed,
Fazio said.
From Jan. 1 through
March 15, Wafla provided
5,000 H-2A workers to
Washington state grow-
ers, mostly for pruning fruit
trees.
“We were lucky. We’re
entering a slower period
where we were only cross-
ing 120 workers this week
compared with 1,000 a week
a few weeks back,” Fazio
said.
Demand ramps up in
May as growers need work-
ers for apple thinning and
cherry harvest, he said.
The last big push of the
season is from Aug. 10 to
Sept. 1 as growers enter
apple and pear harvest, he
said.
A record 257,667 H-2A-
visa positions were approved
by the U.S. Department of
Labor in 2019. Washing-
ton state ranked third with
26,226 positions.
Fazio said the H-2A
program is well regulated
and has a proven track
record of handling health
emergencies.
For example, Fazio
pointed to an outbreak of
mumps at a worker camp
S177496-1
in the Columbia Basin last
year. He said Wafla worked
quickly with the Washington
State Department of Health
to isolate four workers who
tested positive for the ill-
ness, while quarantining 100
other workers who might
have been exposed.
“We don’t think any of
our farms are going to get
COVID-19 by the time
workers are coming in May,”
Fazio said. “But if we don’t
get them here, we don’t have
an economy.”
Meanwhile, agricultural
employers and labor unions
are emphasizing increased
protections for worker
health and safety.
The United Farm Work-
ers union sent an open letter
to all agricultural employ-
ers requesting “further pro-
active steps to ensure the
safety of farmworkers, pro-
tect buyers and safeguard
consumers.”
Those steps include
extending
state-required
sick pay to 40 hours or more,
eliminating the 90-day wait-
ing period for new farm-
workers to be eligible for
sick pay and offering day-
care assistance for farm-
worker families.
Reyna Lopez, executive
director of Pineros y Camp-
esinos Unidos del Noroeste,
or PCUN, said they are
reaching out to state agen-
cies to ensure employers
provide multi-lingual train-
ing and educational materi-
als for workers.
“If folks don’t understand
what the threat is ... that is
when we actually see people
being pretty careless, or not
taking precautions,” Lopez
said.
Lopez said she is not
EO Media Group file photo
Workers prune apple trees in East Wenatchee, Washington.
Safeguards aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 coro-
navirus could threaten the supply of H-2A farmworkers from
outside the U.S.
aware of any cases of
COVID-19 among Oregon
farmworkers. PCUN is Ore-
gon’s largest Latino union,
representing approximately
7,000 farmworkers.
At Threemile Canyon
Farms in Boardman, Ore.,
about 50 seasonal work-
ers are currently on hand
for the spring potato plant-
ing season. A spokeswoman
for the farm, Anne Struthers,
said Threemile Canyon has
extended its sick leave for
workers by another 10 days,
and is practicing social dis-
tancing where possible to
keep workers safe.
“There is no way to
know how much or how lit-
tle this will affect our farm
in rural Oregon,” Struthers
said. “We’re going to do
everything in our power to
make sure everyone stays
healthy.”
Spring is also the peak
shipping season for Ore-
gon’s $995 million green-
house and nursery indus-
try. Jeff Stone, executive
director of the Oregon
Association of Nurseries,
said it is already difficult
to find workers willing to
package products and load
trucks.
While few of the indus-
try’s seasonal workers come
from the H-2A program,
Stone said the COVID-19
outbreak only adds to that
pressure of agriculture’s
overall labor picture.
“All this really shows
is the fragility of the work-
force,” Stone said. “This
adds a layer of worry. I feel
for every business.”
National Ag Day
Thank you farmers and ranchers!
EO Media Group file photo
Not only is COVID-19 pandemic having a financial impact on
cattle producers, it is also challenging the beef supply chain,
industry experts say.
Coronavirus brings uncertainty
to the cattle and beef markets
By Carol Ryan Dumas
EO Media Group
OTEC is proud to celebrate the
people who have dedicated
their lives to feeding the world.
Putting Our Energy To Work For You
otec.coop
S178312-1
551 W Main St • John Day • 541-575-1346
S179718-1
Les Schwab supported the 2019 Grant County Youth
Auction by purchasing the following Market Animals.
Cattle producers are feel-
ing the impact of the coro-
navirus pandemic as prices
fall at auction and in futures
contracts.
Not only is the pandemic
having a financial impact on
cattle producers, it is also
challenging the beef sup-
ply chain, Colin Woodall,
National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association CEO, said in
the “Beltway Beef” podcast
on Friday.
NCBA is coordinating
and talking with all seg-
ments of the supply chain to
keep beef moving, he said.
“We all need to under-
stand we need to keep beef
moving throughout the
chain in order to make sure
this market situation is not
any worse than it currently
is,” he said.
Right now, there aren’t
any issues with pack-
ing plants scaling back
or inspections by USDA.
Things are moving forward,
he said.
“But we also know that
this is a very fluid situation,”
he said.
Almost every day brings
something new. That’s why
he said NCBA needs to
maintain contact with all the
segments of the supply chain
to stay apprised of what’s
happening — and if changes
need to be made, NCBA can
be part of that discussion to
ensure beef continues to be
on the shelves.
“This is a high priority for
NCBA, and we are working
with the government, work-
ing with the supply chain,
working with Congress to
ensure that we keep beef
moving,” he said.
As for the impact on cat-
tle markets, there’s still a lot
of clarity to be obtained in
the next few weeks if not the
next 30 to 45 days, Kevin
Good, CattleFAX vice pres-
ident, said.
“We need to get confi-
dence back in the markets,
not only in the cattle but
obviously in the financials
and across the board,” he
said.
Live cattle futures con-
tinued to freefall this past
week. Cattle prices have fol-
lowed suit and have been
soft the last couple of weeks.
Price levels now are pretty
tough for yearling and cow-
calf operators.
“There’s
no
doubt
about it, we’re at or below
breakevens in some of those
categories,” he said.
The industry has done
an adequate job at harvest-
ing cattle year to date. Prod-
uct has moved exceptionally
well, and demand has been
extremely strong, he said.
“But unfortunately, the
markets are building in a
lot of uncertainty. They’re
building in a lot of soft-
er-type demand levels than
we would expect to see,” he
said.
The key is to get down
the road a few weeks and let
markets become a little more
sure of when the coronavi-
rus outbreak will be con-
tained and when commerce
and travel are expected to be
more normal, he said.
The market should then
recover to some degree.
Hopefully, he said, that’s a
shorter term duration rather
than longer term. Each week,
each month of uncertainty
will bring some demand and
economic disruption.
“Hopefully, within a few
weeks, we’ll have a better
grasp as far as a timetable
where we get back to more
of a normalcy,” he said.