Ag Leaders Urge Lawmakers to Pass Emergency Labor Relief

Sarah Cranston
N.J. Correspondent

A recent study conducted by First Pioneer Farm Credit, “An Untended Garden State?: Farm Labor, Immigration Reform and the Economic Impact to New Jersey’s Agriculture,” has spurred a group of farm and labor leaders to urge U.S. Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and U.S. Representative Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.) to act on emergency agriculture labor relief in Congress.

During a recent conference call, Bob Smith, senior vice president of public affairs and knowledge exchange at First Pioneer Farm Credit said, “Farm labor availability is the most critical issue facing long term viability of Northeast agriculture.” That includes New Jersey, which has come to rely heavily on immigrant workers.

The study relied on 2002 agricultural census data to determine the number of farms vulnerable to closing or significantly changing their business models if the current immigration “enforcement-only” policies continue. The results, which primarily looked at greenhouse/nursery, fruit, vegetable and dairy farms, indicated “that over 500 N.J. farms are highly vulnerable to going out of business or having to severely cut back their operations from a prolonged severe disruption in labor availability,” Smith said. “The market value of agricultural production from these 500 farms is estimated to be in excess of $475 million dollars.”

Smith said that those farms employ an estimated, 6,200 full-time equivalent (FTEs) positions. The study also looked at farm-related businesses including the farm input, farm service and farm processing and marketing sectors and estimated an additional 19,500 jobs could be impacted by a severe labor shortage situation.

Additional issues related to decreased farm productivity due to labor shortages that have to do with the larger New Jersey community were not studied, but Smith said “fewer dollars will flow through local communities ... there will be less locally grown products which means products will have to come in from other parts of the country or more likely, from foreign imported sources.”

Craig Regelbrugge of Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform cited a USA Today Gallup Poll that found 73 percent of consumers are concerned about higher grocery bills.

“The daily headlines are filled with a worldwide food crisis,” Regelbrugge said. “The reality is that the U.S. has a world-class agricultural industry and it would be absolutely reckless for our nation’s leaders to jeopardize the system by adhering to an enforcement-only approach that would devastate those sectors that need labor to exist. If we want those wholesome products to be locally grown and available we need to solve that problem.”

The reality is that much of the U.S.’s hired farm workforce is undocumented. Nelson Carrasquillo, general coordinator of CATA a New Jersey-based farm worker organization acknowledges that much of the organization’s membership is undocumented and the current enforcement-only policies foster an unstable environment for workers who fear raids. Since Congress has been unable to enact long-term change, Carrasquillo and CATA urge “the enactment of an emergency relief act in order to ensure that this workforce, especially the farm workers who are undocumented are able to work without the fear of being victims of a raid.”

Carrasquillo said that the economic conditions in many of the countries immigrant workers come from are such that workers can usually make in one hour in the U.S. what it takes a day to earn in their native countries and it’s those kind of economic conditions that drive undocumented workers to cross the border illegally.

“At the same time,” said Ed Overdevest, president of Overdevest Nurseries, Bridgeton, N.J., “we have American business in many sectors of our economy that are faced with critical shortages of available local help and ... until we have a viable program at a federal level that addresses that need, the economic necessities are going to continue to undermine our security efforts whether it’s building a fence or having invisible fences.

“Enforcement is only part of the answer,” he said. “In addition, we need to reform existing guest worker programs.”

Overdevest, who participates in the federal H2A program, said that the bureaucracy surrounding the system needs to be streamlined, participation costs need to be reduced, and the reach of the program needs to expand.

According to Regelbrugge it appears that a comprehensive immigration reform bill will not be considered again until 2009, possibly 2011. As such, all the participants on the call were interested in emergency legislation. Regelbrugge believes the U.S. needs “something that is bipartisan, that deals with the problems on the ground as well as improves the channels for needed farm workers to come in the future.”

Additionally, the study noted, “These hard-working individuals are filling jobs that Americans just do not want under any circumstances ... Quite simply, there are not American workers available to fill these jobs in either the numbers or at the wage rates that will allow New Jersey farm employers to profitably sustain their businesses.”

New Jersey Farm Bureau President Rich Nieuwenhuis agreed.

“Short of a legal, workable, easy program for our farmers to use, this is getting more and more precarious for our farmers,” Nieuwenhuis said. “Farmers want to do the right thing. They want labor, they need labor, and they have to depend on foreign labor.”