Window of Opportunity?

Warning that a labor shortage looms at the nation’s farms, growers from California and elsewhere are praising a federal measure that would temporarily open the border to thousands of undocumented Mexican migrant workers.

Countering in this decades-old debate, migrant worker advocates say such a guest worker program would unfairly reduce farm laborers’ wages and benefits and would likely exacerbate the problem of illegal immigration.

At a hearing last week in Washington, California Farm Bureau Federation President Bob L. Vice said an existing guest worker program, known as H-2A, “has failed to be a reliable source of temporary and seasonal [workers] for many who have tried to use it.”

Critics say the current program is mired in a bureaucracy that routinely gets workers to the fields too late for the harvest.

Vice urged support of a bill by Rep. Bob Smith (R-Ore.), chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, that would create a two-year pilot program allowing as many as 25,000 farm workers into the United States on a temporary basis in times of shortage. The bill resembles a measure offered during last year’s immigration reform debate.

Farmers say an expected crackdown on undocumented immigrants from Mexico dictated by last year’s immigration law could make it tough to find enough laborers. If farmers can’t hire an adequate work force to fill seasonal needs, they say, fruits and vegetables could simply be left to rot in the fields.

The guest worker debate began in the 1950s, when Mexicans entered the U.S. as temporary workers under the “bracero” program.

Although this issue in the past affected primarily California and Florida, “suddenly there’s a problem all over the place,” said Roy Gabriel, labor affairs director for the Farm Bureau. Complaints, he said, are coming from Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Oregon and Washington.

Critics contend that the only shortage is that of jobs with good pay and benefits.

“There is no shortage of agricultural workers, only a shortage of jobs,” said Bruce Goldstein, co-executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, a migrant worker advocacy group in Washington. California’s 18 top agricultural counties, he noted, have double-digit unemployment.

“This bill is about employers wanting to hire farm workers at very low wages with minimal government oversight,” he said.

Philip Martin, a professor of agricultural economics at UC Davis who follows labor issues, said he has seen no signs of extensive farm worker shortages. However, by his estimate, as many as half of all farm workers are undocumented, and a crackdown could thus create a shortage.

Martin doesn’t expect the legislation to get very far, given the Clinton administration’s opposition to guest worker programs. But, he noted, “this issue is not going away.”

Artichoke Angst Unseasonably high temperatures have wilted artichoke plants in Monterey County, where 75% of the nation’s annual supply of the spiny vegetable is grown.

“It’s likely not to be a large fall crop,” said Mary Comfort, manager of the California Artichoke Advisory Board in Castroville.

That means prices will be higher than shoppers expect, she noted. But, Comfort said, if cooler temperatures return to the coast in the next few weeks, there should be an ample supply for Thanksgiving and Christmas. California, which has about 9,400 acres planted in artichokes this year, produces nearly all the U.S. crop.

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Martha Groves can be reached by e-mail at martha.groves@latimes.com or by fax at (213) 473-2480.