GROUPS: EMPLOYER SANCTIONS LAW WILL HURT AGRICULTURE, CONSUMERS

With BC-CNS-Farms-Box

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By ERIC GRAF
Cronkite News Service

PHOENIX (Monday, Nov. 19) _ Farmers will have a tougher time hiring legal workers from Mexico and consumers will face higher prices for produce when Arizona’s employer sanctions law, intended to punish businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, takes effect Jan. 1, groups representing Arizona’s agriculture industry say.

Farmers who rely on Mexican workers entering the country legally to provide seasonal help worry that additional background checks at the border will cause many of those workers to stay home, said Joe Sigg, director of government relations for the Arizona Farm Bureau.

In Yuma County, where most of the nation’s winter lettuce is grown, buses bring in more than 20,000 documented workers from Mexico, Sigg said.

“We already see workers who are authorized that get discouraged waiting in line to come over and choose not to,” Sigg said.

“If any of those workers are new to the payroll, their documents have to pass through the new system, and how the system responds to that remains to be seen,” Sigg said.

As of Jan. 1, all Arizona employers will have to use a federal program that matches new employees with their Social Security numbers to determine their eligibility to work in the United States. The law states that if a business knowingly hires illegal workers twice, the state can permanently revoke the company’s licenses.

Even without the new law, farmers are having trouble finding help, representatives of farm groups said.

“Last year, in my opinion, was the first year a shortage in labor drove up price,” said John Boelts, president of the Yuma County Farm Bureau. “Was it an anomaly? It’s a sign of things to come.”

The Arizona Farm Bureau, a non-governmental organization of farmers, is among the groups suing in federal court to block the law.

While farmers generally are reluctant to discuss the use of undocumented labor, it is part of farming, said Steve Husman, the director of campus agricultural centers at the University of Arizona’s Cooperative Extension.

“There’s no question that a portion of the agriculture workforce in Arizona and California are undocumented,” Husman said.

Husman said undocumented workers play a bigger role in Yuma County because that area requires more individuals to pick crops, as opposed to more mechanized processes for harvesting a crop such as cotton.

Agriculture accounts for around $1.3 billion in sales annually in Yuma County, according to the Arizona Department of Agriculture. Yuma supplies more than 90 percent of the nation’s lettuce from November to April, according the Arizona Farm Bureau.

The law is one more challenge facing agriculture in Arizona, where a tough market for workers increases the likelihood that farmers will move their operations to Mexico, said Kevin Rodgers, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau.

“There may be a point soon where it’s cheaper to bring (a crop) from south of Yuma instead of growing it in Yuma,” Rodgers said.

While Rodgers’ group opposes the new law, it still supports immigration reforms such as more work visas, he said.

“We’re hoping the feds step up to give us some sort of worker program,” Rodgers said. “Our fear is there are just not enough people to do these jobs.”

The federal government needs to create a path for foreign workers to come into the country in a legal way, said Ed Hermes, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Agriculture.

“We have a choice: Import labor or export agriculture,” Hermes said.

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Web Links:

_ Arizona Farm Bureau: www.azfb.org
_ Arizona Department of Agriculture: www.azda.gov

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PHOTOS: Click thumbnails to see full-resolution images and download

CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-IMMIGRATION-FARMS: A Yuma lettuce field is shown on Feb. 19, 2007. Farm groups say Arizona’s employer sanctions law, intended to punish businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, will make it even harder for farmers to find help and will drive up prices for consumers. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Hailey Gindlesperger)

CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-IMMIGRATION-FARMS: A Yuma lettuce field is shown on Feb. 19, 2007. Farm groups say Arizona’s employer sanctions law, intended to punish businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, will make it even harder for farmers to find help and will drive up prices for consumers. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Hailey Gindlesperger)