Deal would ease farmworker shortage

WASHINGTON – Farmworker shortages that have left tons of fruits and vegetables unplanted or unpicked would be relieved under a proposed immigration deal.

Thursday’s accord includes a pilot program for legalizing agricultural workers, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The aim, she said, is “to see that we have a consistent labor force for agriculture, the one industry in America that almost solely depends on an undocumented work force.”

Farmers say that as immigration enforcement has tightened in recent years, worker shortages have ranged from 10 percent to 30 percent across the labor-intensive produce industry and have affected dairy farms and nurseries, too.

In some cases pears, strawberries and other crops have gone unharvested. In others, farmers have chosen not to plant, or have reduced plantings of the most labor-intensive crops, such as asparagus. Economic losses have been estimated in the millions.

The “AgJobs” program pushed by Feinstein and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, would create a five-year pilot program to legalize immigration status for those who have worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days over the previous two years. The program would be capped at 1.5 million.

Feinstein spokesman Scott Gerber said the basic framework of that bill was becoming part of the deal Thursday.

Their measure would be a separate program and subject to different requirements than for other guest workers or illegal immigrants already in the country, Gerber said.

Currently the farm labor force in the United States numbers about 1.6 million, according to people in the industry, and 70 percent or more are estimated to be illegal.