[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10505-S10507]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          AGRICULTURAL WORKERS

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, we have an opportunity today with the 
border fence bill and with the concurrence of Members of this body to 
help an industry that right now is in deep trouble, and that industry 
is American agriculture.
  The reason it is in deep trouble is because it does not have the 
workforce to harvest the crops. This is true whether it is Florida, the 
State of Washington, Iowa, Idaho, California, Arizona, or any other 
agricultural State. The reason for the shortage of workers is because 
agriculture dominantly depends on what is an undocumented or illegal 
workforce. The reason that is the case is because it has been found 
over the years that American workers simply will not do this work. 
Therefore, agriculture, the huge industry that we have in America, has 
come to depend on an undocumented workforce.

  Just to give one example--and I wish I had a big chart--but this is 
the pear crop in Lake County, a farm owned by Toni Scully, and these 
mounds are rotting pears on the field because they cannot be harvested 
in time.
  California is the largest agricultural State in the Nation. It is a 
$34 billion industry. It has 76,500 farms. California produces one-half 
of all of the Nation's fruits, vegetables, and nuts from only 3 percent 
of the Nation's farmland. If these products cannot be harvested--and it 
is late in the harvest season today--the price of fresh produce all 
over this Nation is going to rise.
  We have an opportunity to do something about it. I am joined on the 
floor by Senator Larry Craig of the State of Idaho who is the main 
author of the AgJOBS Program. In the Judiciary Committee in the 
immigration bill, we revised AgJOBS and it was part of the Senate-
passed immigration bill. Along with AgJOBS, we have reformed the 
agricultural guest worker program called H-2A. These two programs 
combine to give the farmers of America the certitude they need that 
there will, in fact, be a workforce able to harvest their crops, plant 
their crops, prune, cut, pack, and sort crops in this great country.
  In my State we have roughly 350 different crops: lemons, tomatoes, 
raisins, lettuce, prunes, onions, cotton, and many others that are 
grown all across the State. Growers are reporting that their harvest 
crews are 10 to 20 percent of what they were previously. It is a 
disaster, and it will be a very costly disaster for the farm community 
as well as for the consumers of America. And it can be solved. We could 
move today to put the AgJOBS bill on the border fence bill. We all 
recognize it isn't germane postcloture, but the body could agree to 
include it because of the emergency circumstances that exist in 
agriculture States throughout the Nation today.
  In my State we employ at least 450,000 people in the peak of the 
harvest, with farm workers progressing from one crop to the next, 
stringing together as much as 7 months of work. The estimate is that 
the season is falling short by 70,000 workers.
  It is a very serious situation. Fields in Pajaro Valley in Santa Cruz 
County are being abandoned. Farmers can't find workers to harvest 
strawberry, raspberry, and vegetable crops. In the Pajaro Valley, one 
farmer reports he has been forced to tear out 30 acres of vegetables. 
He has about 100 acres compromised by weeds because there is nobody to 
weed the field. He estimates his loss so far to be $200,000. California 
and Arizona farmers say they need 77,000 workers during December to May 
to harvest vegetables, and they estimate the shortage will be 35,000 
workers.
  It is amazing to me that we can't do something about this by passing 
a bill that has been heard in the Judiciary Committee, that has been 
amended, that has been discussed over a period of years.
  I would ask, if I might, the Senator from Idaho a series of 
questions, through the Chair. The first question is how long the 
Senator from Idaho has been working on the AgJOBS bill?
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator asking the 
question. I began to work with American agriculture and specifically 
western growers in the Pacific Northwest and in the Senator's State of 
California starting in about 1999 when they came to me and recognized, 
as they now clearly know, that they were beginning to rely on an 
illegal workforce of undocumented workers who were coming in because 
the law that exists, the H-2A, was so complicated and so bureaucratic, 
it was simply failing them. So it has been now at least 7 years that we 
have worked to comprise and build the AgJOBS legislation.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, if I may, through the Chair, is there 
a crisis in the State of Idaho?
  Mr. CRAIG. There is a growing crisis in the State of Idaho. I would 
like, if the Senator from California doesn't mind, to submit for the 
Record a ``Dear Colleague'' letter that the Senator from California and 
I sent out late this month. It speaks of California and Idaho and 
Washington and Oregon. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in 
the Record.

[[Page S10506]]

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                               Washington, DC, September 22, 2006.
       Dear Colleague: Earlier this week, we went to the floor to 
     highlight the desperate need for agricultural workers. In our 
     colloquy, we discussed how American farmers are suffering, 
     not because they don't have the crops and inventory, but 
     because they don't have the workers to bring their crops to 
     the market.
       In fact, just this morning, a New York Times front page 
     story proclaimed ``Pickers Are Few, and Growers Blame 
     Congress.'' (copy attached) To be honest, we agree with their 
     sentiment.
       Farmers across this country have every reason to be angry 
     and frustrated. There is simply no reason AgJOBS has not been 
     enacted, and no reason it could not be passed now. The New 
     York Times article is just one of dozens that have been 
     written this summer highlighting the plight our farmers are 
     facing.
       California is the single largest agriculture state in the 
     nation with over $34 billion in annual revenue and 
     approximately 76,500 farms. And this year, growers in 
     California are reporting that their harvesting crews are 10 
     to 20 percent of what they were previously. As the Times 
     reported, ``California farms employ at least 450,000 people 
     at the peak of the harvest, with farm workers progressing 
     from one crop to the next, stringing together as much as 
     seven months of work. Growers estimate the state fell short 
     this harvest season by 70,000 workers.'' The impact is 
     devastating ``fields go untended, and acres have to be torn 
     up because there is no one to harvest them.'' (San Jose 
     Mercury News 8/9/06)
       Agricultural labor shortages affect not just California; in 
     fact, they are impacting farms across the country, including 
     harvesting of citrus in Florida, apples in New Hampshire, 
     strawberries in Washington, and cherries in Oregon. In 
     Wyoming, it has been reported that the labor shortage played 
     a central role in the imminent closure of the $8 million Wind 
     River Mushroom farm. The Idaho Department of Commerce and 
     Labor reports that the number of farm workers in Idaho is 
     down by 18 percent, and the Potato Growers of Idaho believes 
     ``appropriate legislation, such as AgJOBS, is needed to keep 
     the industry growing.'' (PGI news release, 9/12/06)
       According to Cox News Service, ``One farmer in Cowlitz 
     County in Washington state reported one-third of his 
     blueberry crop rotted in the field for want of enough 
     pickers,'' and a farmer in Oregon complained ``farmworkers 
     should have been harvesting 25 tons of fruit per day from 
     his Polk County cherry orchard. Instead, he could only 
     hire enough temporary farmworkers to pick 6 tons.''
       Most shocking, the American Farm Bureau has found ``that if 
     Congress enacts legislation that deals only with border 
     security and enforcement, the impact on fruit and vegetable 
     farmers nationwide would be between $5 billion and $9 billion 
     annually. Net farm income in the rest of the agricultural 
     sectors would decline between $1.5 billion and $5 billion a 
     year.''
       Yet this is a problem we know how to solve, and can solve 
     with your help. We have both introduced the AgJOBS bill as an 
     amendment to the border fence bill now before the Senate. The 
     AgJOBS program, previously passed by the Senate, is a 
     bipartisan solution that would create a pilot program to 
     allow certain longtime, trusted agricultural workers to 
     legalize their immigration status in the United States while 
     at the same time fixing the H2A visa program so farmers 
     needing new temporary workers can bring them into this 
     country through legal channels.
       The time is long overdue to help American farmers get the 
     labor they need. The opportunity is before us, and we must 
     not turn our backs on this real problem that could be fixed 
     with the enactment of the AgJOBS legislation. We urge you to 
     support our efforts to get AgJOBS added to the border fence 
     legislation and help American farmers get the assistance they 
     need to bring their crops to market.
           Sincerely,
     Dianne Feinstein,
       U.S. Senator.
     Larry Craig,
       U.S. Senator.
                                  ____


               [From the New York Times, Sept. 22, 2006]

              Pickers Are Few, and Growers Blame Congress

                           (By Julia Preston)

       Lakeport, CA--The pear growers here in Lake County waited 
     decades for a crop of shapely fruit like the one that adorned 
     their orchards last month.
       ``I felt like I went to heaven,'' said Nick Ivicevich, 
     recalling the perfection of his most abundant crop in 45 
     years of tending trees.
       Now harvest time has passed and tons of pears have ripened 
     to mush on their branches, while the ground of Mr. 
     Ivicevich's orchard reeks with rotting fruit. He and other 
     growers in Lake County, about 90 miles north of San 
     Francisco, could not find enough pickers.
       Stepped-up border enforcement kept many illegal Mexican 
     migrant workers out of California this year, farmers and 
     labor contractors said, putting new strains on the state's 
     shrinking seasonal farm labor force.
       Labor shortages have also been reported by apple growers in 
     Washington and upstate New York. Growers have gone from 
     frustrated to furious with Congress, which has all but given 
     up on passing legislation this year to create an agricultural 
     guest-worker program.
       Last week, 300 growers representing every major 
     agricultural state rallied on the front lawn of the Capitol 
     carrying baskets of fruit to express their ire.
       This year's shortages are compounding a flight from the 
     fields by Mexican workers already in the United States. As it 
     has become harder to get into this country, many illegal 
     immigrants have been reluctant to return to Mexico in the 
     off-season. Remaining here year-round, they have gravitated 
     toward more stable jobs.
       ``When you're having to pay housing costs, it's very 
     difficult to survive and wait for the next agricultural 
     season to come around,'' said Jack King, head of national 
     affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation.
       California farms employ at least 450,000 people at the peak 
     of the harvest, with farm workers progressing from one crop 
     to the next, stringing together as much as seven months of 
     work. Growers estimate the state fell short this harvest 
     season by 70,000 workers. Joe Bautista, a labor contractor 
     from Stockton who brings crews to Lake County, said about 
     one-third of his regular workers stayed home in Mexico 
     this year, while others were caught by the Border Patrol 
     trying to enter the United States.
       With fewer workers, Mr. Bautista fell behind in harvests 
     near Sacramento and arrived weeks late in Lake County. 
     ``There was a lot of pressure on the contractors,'' he said. 
     ``But there is only so much we can do. There wasn't enough 
     labor.''
       For years, economists say, California farmers have been 
     losing their pickers to less strenuous, more stable and 
     sometimes higher-paying jobs in construction, landscaping and 
     tourism.
       ``If you want another low-wage job, you can work in a hotel 
     and not die in the heat,'' said Marc Grossman, the spokesman 
     for the United Farm Workers of America. The union calculates 
     that up to 15 percent of California's farm labor force leaves 
     agriculture each year.
       As they sum up this season's losses, estimated to be at 
     least $10 million for California pear farmers alone, growers 
     in the state mainly blame Republican lawmakers in Washington 
     for stalling immigration legislation that would have 
     addressed the shortage by authorizing a guest-worker program 
     for agriculture. Many growers, a dependably Republican group, 
     said they felt betrayed.
       ``After a while, you get done being sad and start being 
     really angry,'' said Toni Scully, a lifelong Republican whose 
     family owns a pear-packing operation in Lake County. ``The 
     Republicans have given us a lot of lip service, and our crops 
     are hanging on the trees rotting.''
       Tons more pears that were harvested were rejected by Mrs. 
     Scully's packing plant because they were picked too late. The 
     rejects were dumped in a farm lot, mounds of pungent fruit 
     swarming with bees, left to be eaten by deer. ``The anthem 
     about the fruited plain,'' Mrs. Scully said sadly, ``I don't 
     think this is what they had in mind.''
       Some economists and advocates for farm workers say the 
     labor shortages would ease if farmers would pay more. Lake 
     County growers said that pickers' pay was not low--up to $150 
     a day--and that they had been ready to pay even more to save 
     their crops. ``I would have raised my wages,'' said Steve 
     Winant, a pear grower whose 14-acre orchard is still laden 
     with overripe fruit. ``But there weren't any people to pay.''
       The tightening of the border with Mexico, begun more than a 
     decade ago but reinforced since May with the deployment of 
     6,000 National Guard troops, has forced California growers 
     to acknowledge that most of their workers are illegal 
     Mexican migrants. The U.F.W. estimates that more than 90 
     percent of the state's farm workers are illegal.
       Most California growers gave up years ago on recruiting 
     workers through the seasonal guest-worker program currently 
     in place. Known as H-2A, the program requires employers to 
     prove they tried to find American workers and to apply well 
     in advance for relatively small contingents of foreign 
     workers for fixed time periods.
       ``Our experience with the current H-2A program has been a 
     nightmare,'' said Luawanna Hallstrom, general manager of 
     Harry Singh & Sons, a vine-ripe tomato grower based in 
     Oceanside, near San Diego.
       Ms. Hallstrom said her company tried to use the program in 
     the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, when security checks 
     forced it to fire illegal migrant employees who were working 
     in tomato fields on a military base. Her company lost $2.5 
     million on that 2001 crop, she said.
       Over the years, occasional programs to draw American 
     workers to the harvests have failed. ``Americans do not raise 
     their children to be farm workers,'' Ms. Hallstrom said.
       The failure of Congress to approve a new guest-worker 
     program surprised California growers because a proposal that 
     the Senate passed stemmed from a rare agreement between 
     growers' organizations, the U.F.W. and other advocates for 
     farm workers, and legislators ranging from conservative 
     Republicans to liberal Democrats.
       Known as AgJobs, the proposal would create a new temporary-
     resident status for seasonal farm workers and give them the

[[Page S10507]]

     chance to become permanent residents if they work intensively 
     in agriculture for at least three years. It was included in a 
     bill that passed the Senate in May. The House has passed 
     several bills focused on border security, and has avoided 
     negotiations with the Senate on a broader immigration 
     overhaul. [Three of the House bills were passed Thursday.]
       Mr. Ivicevich, a 69-year-old family farmer, is not given to 
     displays of emotion. But he paused for a moment, overwhelmed, 
     as he stood among trees sagging with pears that oozed when he 
     squeezed them. His nighttime sleep, in his cottage among his 
     122 acres of orchards, is disrupted by the thud of dropping 
     fruit and the cracking of branches.
       For decades, Mr. Ivicevich said, migrant pickers would 
     knock on his door asking for work climbing his picking 
     ladders. Then about five years ago they stopped knocking, and 
     he turned to a labor contractor to muster harvest crews. This 
     year, elated, he called the contractor in early August. Pears 
     must be picked green and quickly packed and chilled, or they 
     go soft in shipping.
       ``Then I called and I called and I called,'' Mr. Ivicevich 
     said.
       The picking crew, which he needed on Aug. 12, arrived two 
     weeks late and 15 workers short. He lost about 1.8 million 
     pounds of pears.
       His neighbor, Mr. Winant, standing in his drooping orchard 
     with his hands sunk in his jeans pockets, said he would 
     rather bulldoze the pear trees than start preparing them for 
     a new season.
       ``It's like a death, like a son died,'' said Mr. Winant, 
     45, who cares for the small orchard himself during the 
     winter. ``You work all year and then see your work go to 
     ground. I want to pull them out because of the agony. It's 
     just too hard to take.''

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, clearly what is happening--and the Senator 
has said it so well--is this a failure of American agriculture or is 
this a failure of Congress? It is clearly a failure of Congress and the 
Government.
  We have known our borders are porous for a long time, and we are 
closing them now, and we should close them. There is nothing wrong with 
doing that. In fact, for national security and to build an orderly 
process in immigration, it is critical that we do close them or control 
them. But we also knew that immediately attached to it had to be the 
creation of a legal guest worker program. That is where Congress is 
failing. We believe and in the letter we submitted the losses by the 
end of the harvest season could go anywhere from $1 billion--and they 
are well beyond that now--to $5 billion or $6 billion at farm gate, 
meaning as it leaves the farm, which means to the consumer in the 
supermarkets of America, it will be a much higher price to pay.
  I thank the Senator for asking the question.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his response.
  The fact is we have a pilot program that is part of the immigration 
bill that would provide over a 5-year period 1.5 million undocumented 
workers the opportunity to become documented, and provided they do 
agricultural work for a period of time, over time, to earn a green 
card. In discussing this with some Members they said they would agree 
if it were a temporary program. Well, it is a temporary program, 
because it sunsets in 5 years. I believe, and the Senator from Idaho 
will correct me if I am wrong, we would be prepared to change that 
sunset from 5 years to 2 years, or a time that would bring about 
concurrence from the Members.
  But the point is there is a crisis out there. The point is we can 
solve that crisis now with this legislation. And the point is it is not 
new legislation. It has been authored, debated, discussed, heard now 
over a 6-year period. It has been refined. Both Senator Craig and I are 
convinced it will work. It was part of the immigration bill.
  So what we are asking this body to do is essentially suspend the rule 
and allow this program to go into law at this time so the remainder of 
the harvest season and, more importantly, the planting season for 
winter vegetables and crops can be handled. If we do not do this, we 
will go well into next year without the agricultural labor present to 
sustain an agricultural industry in America in an adequate way, and the 
costs will be enormous.
  I think somebody around here should begin to think of the consumer. I 
don't want to say to California families they are going to go in and 
buy heads of lettuce at $4 a head or more or broccoli at $5 a head or 
anything else because of a dramatic shortage, because farmers won't 
plant, because farmers can't pick, because farmers can't harvest, they 
can't sort, they can't pack, they can't can. That labor is needed, and 
year after year it has been documented that Americans will not do this 
kind of difficult, hot, stooped labor.
  So this is an opportunity. It is an opportunity for us to respond to 
an industry of which we are all proud, and an industry which is in deep 
trouble at the present time.
  Let me go on with a few other examples. I mentioned that California 
and Arizona farmers say they need 77,000 workers during the December to 
May to harvest, and they estimate they may be 35,000 workers short. The 
estimates from my State are that illegal immigrants make up at least 
one-fourth of the workforce and as high as 90 percent of the farm labor 
payroll. It is also estimated that for every agricultural job lost, we 
lose three to four other related jobs. I am told that in the Senator's 
State, farm workers are down 18 percent, and the potato growers of 
Idaho want AgJOBS passed to keep the industry growing.
  In the State of Washington, in Cowlitz County, one-third of one 
farmer's blueberry crop rotted in the field because there were no 
pickers. Apple growers in the central part of the State were scrambling 
to find someone--anyone--to do the work of thinning the apple crop. 
Also in Washington, production at Bell Buoy Crab in Chinook, Pacific 
County is down 50 percent since April.
  In Florida, Citrus Mutual notes: ``There is very little doubt we will 
leave a significant amount of fruit on the tree.'' Orange production in 
the State has been predicted to be the lowest since 1992 if the worst 
projections are realized. Six million boxes of oranges may well go 
unharvested in Florida this year because of a shortage of fruit 
pickers.
  In Wyoming, they face the imminent closure of the $8 million Wind 
River Mushroom farm.
  And in Oregon, farm workers should be harvesting 25 tons of fruit per 
day from the Polk County cherry orchards.
  This is some indication. We have a bill, and that bill would provide 
the opportunity for an undocumented worker who has worked in 
agriculture for a substantial period of time--there are two different 
formulas in the bill--to go in to register, to pay a fine, to show 
their tax returns, to agree to pay taxes in the future, to get a 
temporary work card called a blue card, which would be biometric so 
that that worker is identified; it would eliminate fraud, and it would 
enable that worker, if they continue to work in agriculture for a 
period of years, to then gain a green card. It is a sound program. It 
will give farmers certainty. They will know there is an agricultural 
workforce, and it will involve people already in this country who are 
skilled, who are professional at farm work.
  I don't know what it takes to show that there is an emergency. I 
think next year we would be ready, willing, and able to do this, but we 
will have lost another agricultural season, we will have lost a spring 
season, a summer season. I hope that someone will listen, that the 
leadership of this body will allow us, and I will call up--well, I 
can't do it now, but at an appropriate time I will call up the 
amendment that is at the desk.
  I thank the Chair.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I ask to speak for 7 minutes as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 7 minutes.
  Mr. DeMINT. I thank the Chair.
  (The remarks of Mr. DeMINT related to the introduction of S. 3995 are 
printed in today's Record under ``Statements On Introduced Bills and 
Joint Resolutions.'')

                          ____________________