LANSING, Mich. — Every year it seems farm employers complain there aren’t enough farm workers – and 2015 is no exception. But the problem is likely worse in Michigan compared to most other states because Michigan farmers grow an especially diverse crop, with many fruits and vegetables that have to be picked by hand.
According to USDA economist Tom Hertz, since 2007 the number of illegal Mexican immigrants in the United States has actually been decreasing. Since 46 percent of crop laborers are drawn from this pool, it makes sense to think there really is a farm labor shortage, Hertz wrote in the Journal of Agricultural Economics in January 2013.
He found evidence of farm labor shortages for jobs such as farm labor contractor, crew leader, soil preparation, planting and cultivating and fruit and vegetable production. Shortages seem especially pronounced in some counties in California and Michigan, he wrote, but there are shortages in several other states.
Greenville, Mich., area apple grower Steve Klackle told The Detroit News on Sept. 19 he was waiting on 50 migrant laborers to finish up work on another farm in the southwestern part of the state, but that he’d been assured the workers would be there soon to help with the harvest.
Fruit and vegetable picking positions are hard work and tend not to pay well. One recent advertisement on the Pure Michigan Talent Connect website (which is linked to on the Michigan Workforce Development Agency’s Migrant, Immigrant and Seasonal Worker webpage) advertises such a job picking apples.
The worker has to carry a full picking bag weighing 40-45 pounds down an 8- to 20-foot ladder quickly. Apples have to be handled in a way that they don’t get bruised. Workers have to move and reposition the ladder quickly and have to be able to distinguish between apples appropriate for picking and those that aren’t.
The pay is $16-$17 per 18-bushel box, with a guaranteed minimum wage of $8.15 an hour, the state’s minimum. Approved housing is available, the ad states.
Another ad offers a position hand-picking pumpkins 5-8 hours a day. Pay is $9 an hour with some housing available. Other advertised jobs include packer, general laborer and sorter.
"Due to the seasonal nature of the farmer’s employment needs, it’s always a challenge to ramp up with the number of workers we’re looking at," said Craig Anderson, manager of agricultural, labor and safety services at the Michigan Farm Bureau. "This is why farmers have a significant amount of housing available.
"More workers are available in Michigan to do farm work this year than last because of the H-2A guest worker program. That created some relief this year compared to last year."
However, a terrible season for fruit growers in 2012 probably contributed to fewer workers being available in Michigan compared to before the freeze, Anderson added.
Workers who were coming to Michigan from states such as Texas and Florida ended up having to look for work elsewhere. Many of them didn’t come back in 2013 and 2014.
Longer-term trends include families placing a greater emphasis on keeping their children in one school. Such families are less willing to travel to do seasonal farm work. A good economy in Texas, which supplies a lot of migrant labor to Michigan, is probably keeping many workers from traveling to Michigan, where the unemployment rate is higher.
Migrant workers, like others, are also aging out of the workforce, Anderson said. He said recent research out of California has shown there has been a 20 percent increase in available farm jobs in Michigan since 2004.
In order to ensure a steady flow of cheap labor into the country, some are advocating an expansion of guest worker programs similar to the Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (FARMS) guest worker program in Ontario, Canada.
FARMS is 45 years old and is run by farmers, albeit with government approval. FARMS President Ken Forth said the program is a "mirror image" of the federal H-2A program in the United States.
"We fly about 18,000 workers in from Mexico and the Caribbean every year to work in Ontario," said Forth, a broccoli grower in Missaukee County. The nonprofit also brings in an additional 1,500 workers to work on farms in eastern Canada each year.
Every participating farmer has to be approved by the Canadian government and has to provide free, government-approved housing for workers. The program charges a $40 fee to the farmer for each worker, plus an additional fee if the farmer wants the service to bring the worker to the farm.
Forth said Canada, unlike the United States, has "zero undocumented immigrants. We had to do a program like this, or not grow fruits and vegetables." He added all the workers leave after six months in Canada: "Six months in, six months out."
