As
numbers of workers decline, pay goes up for those who pick Ventura County crops
[Ventura County Star]
The
most critical issue facing California’s $43 billion agriculture industry is no
longer pesticides, water supply or land use. It is the increasing lack of
labor. And now growers who rely on the largely immigrant and historically
low-paid fieldworkers to harvest their fruit and vegetables say they are
increasing those wages to avoid losing produce….Mayhew said some of Oxnard
Lemon’s growers are paying pickers 10 to 20 percent more this year than last
year as crew sizes have shrunk by nearly 70 percent. Pickers are also not
working Saturdays as they once did if they were behind, Mayhew said, and more
importantly, they are increasingly bypassing working at low-yield orchards with
small fruit for those with bigger volumes that will generate more money, he said….Henry
Vega, owner of Coastal Harvesting Inc. in Santa Paula, who provides avocado,
lemon, strawberry and leafy greens field laborers for large growers such as
Mission Produce Inc., Limoneira Co. and Dole Food Co. Inc., said the lack of
labor has been the worse this year than in any of his 33 years in business.
Immigration
bill faces uncertain future in House [Associated Press]
The
immigration debate is shifting to the Republican-led House, where lawmakers
have shown little appetite for the large-scale, comprehensive approach their
Senate colleagues embraced last week. The Republican chairman of the House
Judiciary Committee said Sunday that any attempt at comprehensive immigration
legislation cannot offer a "special pathway to citizenship" for those
in the United States illegally. Democrats have called that position a
deal-breaker. Meanwhile, both parties eyed the politics that could yield
electoral victories or irrelevance among the growing Hispanic voting bloc.
ALRB
provides unique way to resolve disputes between growers and farmworkers
[California Report]
Today
we continue our series examining sexual harassment and assault of farmworkers.
A patchwork of state and federal agencies handles these kinds of cases. But
California is the only state that has its own special court for resolving labor
disputes between farmworkers and growers. And that court will be considering
one of its first complaints related to sexual harassment this summer….In May,
Torres-Guillén filed her first unfair labor practice complaint relating to
sexual harassment, against Elvia Hernandez’s former employer, the Sandhu
Brothers farm. The ALRB can’t award damages to farmworkers or press criminal
charges. But it can order back wages for workers like Hernandez if they were
fired after complaining on behalf of fellow co-workers. Jack Sodhi, the
attorney for the Sandhu Brothers, disputes the allegations….He says the tiny
Sandhu Brothers farm recently implemented sexual harassment training, something
it chose to do voluntarily. If it were a larger company, with 50 or more
employees, California law would require training of all supervisors about
sexual harassment for two hours every two years.
Dairy
prices rising in California [KCRA TV/Sacramento]
Dairymen
across the state are struggling to stay afloat, and it won't get any better
without paying dairies market value for whey. When the California Department of
Food and Agriculture set a temporary price hike until the end of the year, it
gave producers 12.5 cents more, but didn't solve the main issue, said Michael
Marsh, the CEO of Western United Dairymen. A big discrepancy exists in what the
state dairies get paid for whey compared to other states where the farmers get
paid according to federal whey standards, Marsh said.
Farmers
warn of high milk prices without farm bill [Associated Press]
Dairy
farmers expressed frustration this week with Congress' failure to pass a farm
bill, saying the uncertainty made it hard to do business and some could go
under without changes to the federal milk program. Farmers also worried that if
a current nine-month extension of the 2008 farm bill expires with no action, a
64-year-old law will kick in, sending milk prices spiraling. While that might
provide short-term profits, they say, it'd hurt them in the long run because no
one wants to buy milk at $6 a gallon. The U.S. House voted down a farm bill
June 20, about a week after the Senate approved a different version. It was the
second year in a row that the House failed to pass the every-five-years bill
that sets funding for agriculture and food programs. Last year, it didn't even
vote, prompting the passage in January of a slimmed-down extension of the 2008
law - largely to avoid milk prices sharply increasing.
Water
mining in the county foothills [Modesto Bee]
A
major problem is developing in the foothills east of the flood-irrigated soils
in the valley. Because almonds are as profitable as they are, and flood-
irrigated farmland is so costly, there is an ongoing effort to plant almonds in
the foothills east of the flood-irrigated farmland. That has the potential to
cause major problems for ranchers, who have long used such land for grazing. In
order to understand the potential problems, one needs to understand the water
situation in the foothills. Almonds need about 30 inches of water, or more, to
survive well. Average rainfall is in the range of 12 to 16 inches per year, of
which perhaps half penetrates to recharge ground water. That means that about 2
feet of water, in addition to rain, is needed from a supplemental source. That
source is usually pumped groundwater.
Ag
Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for
information purposes, by the CFBF Communications/News Division, 916-561-5550; news@cfbf.com.
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