Shortage of workers means state berries going unpicked

WOODLAND, Cowlitz County — A third of Jerry Dobbins' 155-acre strawberry crop rotted on the vine this year. His blueberry bushes are so heavy with fruit that the branches are hanging near the ground.

There is no one to pick them.

Dobbins Berry Farm in Southwest Washington near the Columbia River is one of many farms across the state facing a huge labor shortage this growing season, as tighter security along the U.S.-Mexico border has crimped the supply of Latino migrant farmworkers.

Harvest time for strawberries, one of the hardest fruits to pick because of their proximity to the ground, has already come and gone at Dobbins' farm, the largest of its kind in the area. Now Dobbins is worried that his other crops will suffer a similar fate.

"We won't pay any of the bills on our strawberry crop this year," Dobbins said.

His problem is not unique.

Production at Bell Buoy Crab in Chinook, Pacific County, is down 50 percent since Immigration and Custom Enforcement raids in April, according to the Washington State Farm Bureau. Growers across the state are feeling the void left by the worker shortage, said Dean Boyer, spokesman for the Farm Bureau.

"This is a rolling problem. As various harvests come, farmers are going to feel the effects," Boyer said.

For Dobbins, extreme temperatures in late June worsened the problem. Strawberries ripened faster than usual. Strawberries usually require around two workers per acre, but this season Dobbins needed three workers per acre; he actually had about one worker per acre.

The work force on the farm is almost entirely made up of Latino migrant workers, and Dobbins speculates that many of his usual workers simply did not show up this year because border crossing has become too dangerous and too expensive.

Down the road, fellow farmer George Thoeny faces the same labor shortage. Migrants are a necessity, he said, because Americans are unwilling to do agricultural work.

"I personally can tell you, where I need 300 workers a day, I haven't had one Caucasian person knock on my door and say, 'I want to work for you,' " Thoeny said.

Handpicking berries is necessary for the farmers because foreign competition keeps prices low. Both Dobbins and Thoeny own machines that can pick raspberries and blueberries, but they're too expensive and inefficient, Dobbins said.

Machine picking costs him about 85 cents a pound, where handpickers make about 35 cents a pound.

The farmers are quick to defend the Latino population they employ.

"I think that most of these people who work in the fields are some of the hardest-working people I've ever seen in my life. They're no different than people who live here and go to Alaska to work in the summer," Thoeny said.

Bob Baker, a Mercer Island airline pilot, takes exception. He is the author of state Initiative 946, which would have denied medical benefits, including prenatal care, to illegal immigrants. It failed to get enough signatures to get on the November ballot.

"We keep hearing this mantra of 'doing jobs Americans won't do.' It's not true," Baker said. "I've talked to a mother in Yakima who wanted her teenage sons to get agriculture jobs and they couldn't."

He said he believes employers hire illegal immigrants to drive down prices and avoid paying taxes. But he agrees that a guest-worker program is needed.

"That way, the government will know who's here, employers will have to pay FICA [tax] and benefits on workers," Baker said.

Vincente De Jesus works on Dobbins' farm for the harvest and goes home to Oaxaca, Mexico, for the other eight months of the year. De Jesus said he comes to America to raise money for his four children in Mexico. The work is hard in Mexico and doesn't pay enough, he said.

Crossing the border was tougher this year, De Jesus said.

"I knew lots of people, about 20, that tried to make it across. Only two made it," he said.

For Dobbins and Thoeny, the future seems bleak.

"Usually farmers can improvise and come up with a plan B," Thoeny said. "The depressing part is, there is no plan B."