Farmers hiring legal migrant workers often deal with visa application delays, report says

Farmers who expect to face a shortage of agricultural workers during a season can apply for federal H-2A visas, which allow migrant workers from other countries to live and work legally in the U.S. Recently released Government Accountability Office data shows there are major flaws with the application process. While 90 percent of applications were approved in 2011, 37 percent were processed after the deadline, including 7 percent that were approved less than 15 days before workers were needed. (Good Fruit Grower photo: H-2A worker picks apples)

Delays in processing gives employers little time to complete the second phase of application and for workers to get visas. They can apply for visas online, but most of the H-2A process requires paper handling, which contributes to delays, the GAO said. Employers who need workers at different times during the season must repeat the entire application process for each set of workers. Farm employers say new rules implemented last year are causing the delay, even though the agencies in charge of it say they can't pinpoint why delays happen.

The GAO was asked to examine the program by the Departments of Labor, Homeland Security and State for aspects that create problems for employers, and how federal agencies have addressed those challenges. GAO found that federal agencies are trying to improve the application process through electronic systems, but those improvements have been delayed. It recommends the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security implement their electronic application systems and use them to collect data about the delays. It says the agencies should use that information to streamline the process. (Read more)

Central Kentucky's few remaining small tobacco farmers having difficulty finding harvest labor

The good news for some Kentucky tobacco-growing counties is that this year's crop is one of the better they've seen in a while. The bad news is that the migrant labor that was once abundant in those parts isn't as available as before. Leslie Moore of the Central Kentucky News-Journal reports that in Taylor County, "finding workers to cut and house this season’s predicted 2,500 pounds of tobacco has been a labor in itself."  (Moore photo)

Pat Hardesty, the county extension agent for agriculture, told Moore the number of migrant workers who help with the harvest has dwindled because there are simply not enough small farms now in the area to keep them employed for long. “Some of our smaller producers have been waiting on crews or they’ve been trying to get local help, which is very difficult,” Hardesty said. “That’s why the migrants are here, because we can’t get enough local labor to get the crop in.” He said migrant workers aren't taking jobs away from Americans: “I promise you, if a tobacco producer here in Taylor County could get local, dependable help, there wouldn’t be migrants here.” Local farmer Aaron Newcome agreed that finding steady local help this year has been difficult. On any given day, he told Moore he has no idea how many workers will show up or how long they will stay.

As a killing frost loomed, Hardesty explained to Moore that speed is of the essence. If frost hits tobacco, the crop's quality is reduced and acres of it can be wasted.

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Alabama's Hispanic farmworkers being replaced by African and Haitian refugees

Alabama farmers are turning to a different set of immigrants to help harvest after the state's controversial immigration law requiring police to check status drove many Hispanics to other states and caused a labor shortage. African and Haitian refugees, which were brought to the U.S. legally by labor brokers, are filling the gap, Margaret Newkirk of Bloomberg News reports.

Most of the refugees were recruited by poultry companies, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They sought refugees because not enough local residents were interested or qualified to work in the plants, Wayne Farms spokesman Frank Singleton told Newkirk. The poultry company spent $5 million to replace and retrain workers after most of its Hispanic workers left. Alabama doesn't track the number of refugees who came to fill jobs, but it had about 95,000 illegal Hispanic immigrants in the workforce in 2010. (Read more)

Rural people in swing states agree with Democrats on immigration -- if they don't see the party label

A National Rural Assembly poll shows that rural people in nine swing states in the presidential election have complex views of immigration, and they are often skewed by party lines. If the party affiliation is hidden, rural voters agree more with the Democratic Party's immigration position than with the Republican Party's. When the affiliation is revealed, a majority of rural voters in the nine states agree with the Republican Party's position. Partisan labels influence how people feel about immigration positions by more than 10 percentage points. (Daily Yonder graph)

"Immigration isn't being talked about much in this campaign, and you can see why in the poll," reports Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder. "The issue is much too slippery. Rural Americans, who are largely Republican, don’t think this is a huge problem and they have very mixed opinions about immigration." Rural voters in this poll believe Mitt Romney better represents their views on illegal immigration, besting President Obama 49 percent to 31. But, 60 percent of those polled said illegal immigration was a small problem in their community. (Read more)

Poll of rural voters in swing states shows Romney doing better against Obama than John McCain did

Republican Mitt Romney is doing better among rural voters than John McCain did in his race with Democrat Barack Obama four years ago, according to a bipartiasn poll of rural voters in nine swing states.

Romney leads Obama by 14 points, 54 percent to 40 percent, in the poll for the National Rural Assembly, a network that promotes more effective rural policy. Four years ago in a poll of the same nine states, McCain got 50 percent and Obama 46.7 percent. "Rural counties are keeping Romney competitive in the states that are now up for grabs," Howard Berkes reports for NPR. "Romney appears to have the rural margin he needs to be competitive in battleground states. And Obama has failed, it seems, to hold on to enough of the rural voters who helped him become president."

The poll was commissioned by the Center for Rural Strategies, a nonpartisan organization, with money from the Carnegie Corp. of New York, and was conducted by Democrat Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and Republican Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies. It surveyed 600 likely voters in non-metropolitan counties in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. Its error margin is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

“The challenge for President [Obama] is just not to get beat too badly in the rural areas,” Bolger said. “This presages a very close election because, as well as Obama did in the rural areas in 2008, he's clearly not replicating that.” Democrat Greenberg said, “Rural areas in this country are very tough for President Obama. It was tough four years ago and they’re even tougher now. I think that that is obviously important in a very close presidential race because it’s really Mitt Romney’s geographic base.”

The poll found that half the respondents favored the Democratic position statement on immigration, while only 39 percent of respondents agreed with the Republican position. “These rural voters are not particularly exorcised about immigration issues,” said Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies. “If you drill down you see they are conflicted. On one hand they want cops to be able to check immigrant papers, but at the same time they favor the DREAM Act promise of full citizenship for all kids who go to college or serve in the military.” For more details, click here.

Small cities, rural areas becoming more diverse

The rural U.S. is quickly becoming more diverse as minorities move out of major cities and into smaller towns and rural areas, according to a study released last week. The trend is being led by large Hispanic and Asian populations nationwide.

The study looked at the 15,000 jurisdictions in the country that govern their own fiscal affairs, which are disproportionately rural, 82.6 percent were mostly white in 2010. That was a drop from 93.4 percent in 1980. Localities where whites made up at least 90 percent of the population fell to 36 percent from 65.8.

The study is part of the US 2010 Project at Brown University and is a series of demographic studies by academics across the country. It's the latest study showing that suburbs, small cities and rural areas are now "on the front lines of changing demographics and culture," Conor Dougherty and Miriam Jordan of The Wall Street Journal report.

The trend is "striking in rural areas where white populations are shrinking as young people leave and the elderly who stay die," Haya El Nasser of USA Today reports. As minority populations move into these areas, their children alter community dynamics. Many rural schools have added classes in English as a second language, and social-service agencies have hired translators, El Nasser reports. "There are literally hundreds of American counties that would be losing population if it were not for minority growth," University of New Hampshire Carsey Institute demographer Kenneth Johnson said. "This diversity is bringing them young people they had been losing for a long time and new opportunities." (Read more)

Western farmers report shortage of farm laborers, blame more stringent border controls

There's a shortage of farm labor in the West, and many blame stronger border controls and a stagnant guest-worker program. The Western Growers Association reports its members are experiencing a 20 percent drop in laborers this year. (Getty Images photo)

The lack of workers is forcing farmers to pay more for the labor they do get and to not harvest some crops, reports Jane Wells of CNBC. California farmer Craig Underwood said some of his crops have been "left in the field" because there weren't enough people to pick them. He's also paying pickers about $9.25 an hour to harvest peppers, Wells reports. Underwood also said much of his workforce is aging and they aren't being replaced because "migratory flows between Mexico and the United States have come to a halt." (Read more)

Growers debate how Obama's lifting of deportation threat from young immigrants affects them

With President Obama's executive order to halt the deportation of young, illegal immigrants announced late last week, Agri-Pulse reports that U.S. agriculture is wrestling with its possible impact on the labor force. The executive order, which incorporates part of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a measure pending in Congress that, while not granting citizenship to children who came to the United States as illegal immigrants, would remove the threat of deportation and grant them the right to work in the United States. The move may provide work permits to as many as 800,000 young immigrants.

"While this might be a step in the right direction, it could set back efforts by the agricultural industry to get a new guest worker program or other needed immigration reform legislation passed in Congress," said Tom Nassif, president and CEO of Western Growers. West Mathison, president of Stemilt Growers, a fruit producing company based in Washington state that relies on immigrant labor for a portion of its workforce, told Agri-Pulse that, "We're trying to understand how this is going to work and how we're going to work with our people who might be in this category. It's going to create hope in the lives of many young people who under no fault of their own have come to know the U.S. as their own, yet that don't have legitimate documentation."

However, Western Growers chief lobbyist, Ken Barbic, said the measure "is as at best short-term relief to something that Congress needs to act on, whether we are talking about the DREAM Act specificially, or larger immigration issues." Barbic noted that the industry has been waiting a long time for some kind of congressional solution.

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Immigration policy changes under consideration could have major impacts on U.S. agriculture

Four writers for the Amber Waves publication of the U.S. Department of Agriculture have dissected the variety of proposed changes to U.S. immigration law as it relates to foreign-born farm workers. Steven Zahniser, Tom Hertz, Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer of USDA's Economic Research Service comprehensively analyze current law and what possible changes might mean.

"Some of these proposals would create additional opportunities for persons from other countries to work legally in U.S. agriculture, while others would use different methods to enforce existing U.S. immigration restrictions. Any of these proposals, if enacted, are likely to have a substantial impact on U.S. agriculture and the market for hired farm labor. Labor is a major input for many agricultural sectors, and persons not authorized to work legally in the United States constitute a large share of the farmworkers employed by U.S. agriculture."

They note that labor accounts for about 17 percent of agriculture's variable production expenses and roughly 40 percent for fruit and vegetable farms and nurseries." The chart below is helpful in understanding how that is substantial for some crops.