Farm Labor in Oregon

In Oregon, the majority of farms are family-owned operations, some of whom have been in agriculture for three generations or more. They face a collision of issues, including $4 per gallon diesel and rising prices for feed and fertilizer. Land prices are going up as development pressure increases. Market volatility and global competition leave the bottom line awash in uncertainty. Add to that Oregon’s high minimum wage. At $7.95 an hour, compared to $5.85 nationally, Oregon’s farm labor costs top the charts.

Yet farmers are also beginning to grapple with labor shortages each season as the immigration controversy boils over and demographics in Mexico shift. Clark Seavert, director of Oregon State University’s North Willamette Research Station, predicts that labor shortages will become the norm in the future. “As Mexico’s economy thrives, they’ll have more demand for their own labor in restaurants, in construction, in other sectors of their economy, just like in the U.S.,” he says.

At the same time, families in Mexico are having fewer children and the 2005 World Migrant report predicts that half as many 15-year-olds will enter the U.S. workforce in the next ten years. The combination suggests that Oregon farmers could become increasingly short-handed in the next decade.

There’s another chorus, though — comprised of unions in particular — arguing that there is no labor shortage, only a shortage of good wages and fair working conditions on farms. A 1997 GAO study supported this argument, but for one major oversight: The GAO failed to distinguish between legal and undocumented workers. As it stands today, if only legal workers were available, the entire country would be facing a severe labor shortage.

While farmers stress about whether they’ll have enough workers to pick their crops this season, they are simultaneously dealing with increasing pressure from the INS in the form of “no match” letters. For those farmers with workers on payroll, their mailboxes have started to see a rash of mail from the INS indicating that workers’ names and Social Security numbers don’t jive. If farmers ignore the letters, they’ll be subject to sanctions and fines. The alternative — “clarifying” each employee’s information with the INS — could leave them in a tight spot: Either fire every employee whose documentation turns out inadequate — up to seven of every ten farmworkers on the books — or face fines.