Major Northeast Tomato Grower Ends Crop Over Migrant Shortage

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

CLARKS SUMMIT, Pa. - Saying the nation's immigration system is broken, Pennsylvania's largest grower of fresh-to-market tomatoes announced Monday he will no longer produce the crop because he can't find enough workers to harvest it.

Keith Eckel, 61, a fourth-generation farmer and the owner of Fred W. Eckel Sons Farms, said he saw a dramatic decline last summer in the number of migrant workers who showed up to pick tomatoes at his 2,000-acre farm in northeastern Pennsylvania.

He said Congress' failure to approve comprehensive immigration reform had hindered his ability to hire enough workers to get his crop to the market. Most of Eckel's workers came from Mexico.

"There are a number of workers hesitant to travel, legal or illegal, because of the scrutiny they are now under," said Eckel, whose tomatoes have been shipped to supermarkets and restaurants throughout the eastern United States. "So there are less workers crossing state lines."

Eckel, who planted 2.2 million tomato plants last year, said he also will stop growing pumpkins and plant half as much sweet corn as usual, resulting in a loss of nearly 175 jobs.

Eckel, one of the largest growers of fresh-market tomatoes in the Northeast, said it cost him $1.5 million to $2 million to plant and harvest a tomato crop , too much of an investment to risk not having enough workers at harvest time.



Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20080324_ap_majornortheasttomatogrowerendscropovermigrantshortage.html

[Parche]

1. There is something wrong with this country

When our unemployment level is high, but they cant get enough workers to work?

They shouldnt even need to have 'migrant' workers ...

:grr: :hi:

[Acadia Blue]

8. They only want slave labor just like America CEOs

[Warpy]

10. Yes, it's called cheap ass employers

If they wanted to make it worth an American's time to drive up there for a month's work, they'd get plenty of out of work Americans whose unemployment had run out to drive up there to work in the fresh air and sunshine. The tomatoes might cost an extra nickel a pound or so, but considering what the price of food is already doing, who'd notice?

[matt819]

16. It's our fault also

We - consumers, that is - demand low prices. . . on everything. And one way to get those low prices is to hire cheap labor. So here are the more valid questions: If the family farmer pays minimum wage, could he get the labor he needs to harvest his crops, whether migrant (legal/illegal), student, itinerant, etc.? Remember, now, these minimum wage folks would then have to live on this minimum wage, pay for transportation, etc. Could Mr. Eckel find the workers under these conditions? And, if so, what does that do to the price of tomatoes? Presumably he's competing against factory farms able to find migrant labor at slave wages and conditions (read "Nobodies" for an account of modern slavery in the US). So could Mr. Eckel sell his tomatoes at a profit? The entire system is off kilter, but the issues are more complex than any one of the factors that go into assessing just how screwed up things are.

[Wednesdays]

27. "We - consumers, that is - demand low prices. . . "

...because we, the common workers, aren't paid decent wages and so have to cut corners everywhere, and therefore can only afford cheaper products...which makes employers think they can cut corners on workers even more, driving down wages...which means that the common worker gets less money to spend on even cheaper products...and on...and on...

[Megahurtz]

30. You got it!!!

[Occulus]

46. Two words would very neatly solve his problem:

Temp agency.

Here's another two words that would solve his problem: "summer job".

And here are two words that would fill those jobs: college students.

Perhaps this guy should have spoken to postal managers. The USPS management found a sneaky way to get around the prohibitions in its contract with the APWU to only employ so-called "casuals" during the "December exception" period which lasts from the end of November to the beginning of January: ignore the prohibition. Casuals now work with us year round.

Postal casuals can be fired for any reason at any time, receive no vacation time or sick leave, and receive no holidays. They are scheduled for six days a week, but must check the schedule each day, as their days off can be altered by management at will. Postal casuals are terrified to file a worker's compensation claim for any reason, because (unlike full-timers) casuals are employed on a year-by-year basis, and can find themselves suddenly without a job at the end of their appointments, without warning. Since other employers seem to have full and open access to workers' compensation claim history (I thought that was illegal, I guess it's not), they don't file- which makes postal managers very happy indeed.

The economy in the US is currently an employer's paradise. People are desperate for work and will take when they can get. Employers have almost free reign under this maladministration to break employment law at will without fear of reprisal. All relevant agencies are firmly on their side.

This tomato grower didn't try hard enough to find non-immigrant labor. My guess is, he didn't try at all.

[PetraPooh]

21. I notice the article didn't indicate that he ever even attempted to hire US citizens

I'm sure many teens and otherwise unemployed would have jumped at the chance to earn a paycheck with reasonable wages and overtime, but of course he doesn't want to pay for that; he wants cheap slave labor. Screw him.

[bhikkhu]

41. 61 yrs old, and the system that he knows is broken

that is, he offers cheap wages and the workers show up like always. Now they don't show up, and the cost of planting and raising crops cannot be justified if the harvest is in doubt, and the market won't bear price increases. Give an old farmer - corporate or otherwise - a break.

[Bandit]

45. As long as you are willing to pay eight bucks a pound for tomatoes.

People want cheap food but don't want cheap wages.. Something is wrong with that picture..

[NMDemDist2]

2. when we were in hi school, we all had summer jobs picking crops

mostly hops and fruit but it's how we made our summer money.

guess that's impossible nowadays eh?

my husband's family is a large wheat farmer, they hire the school teachers every year to drive the grain trucks at harvest when they need more than family members to get the crop in

:shrug:

[panader0]

3. When I was 18, at a Univ. in Oregon, I planted trees with hobos

and drunks, and picked cherries with Mexican families that treated me to many fine dinners. This guy should hit up the high schoolers and college kids. If he can't get help, he should raise his wages. I'm very much for immigration, also very much for getting people here to work too.

[notadmblnd]

4. Pay a decent wage and they will come

and they won't necessarily be migrants. The other thing I'm wondering is how does this result in the loss of 175 jobs if there's no one to do them to begin with?

[DeSwiss]

7. From the article....

"Though Eckel's tomato pickers made an average of $16.59 per hour last year, he said the relatively high wage is not enough to attract local labor to work the fields."

[pagandem4justice]

18. Knowing many migrants/former migrants,

I have been told that employers do offer a good wage, and on the surface, the man's reported $16-something wage may indeed be true...on paper. However, my coworkers (who grew up as migrants) and students (many of whom travel in spring and fall as migrant family members) have told me on many occasions that this "high wage" is prior to the employer's automatic docking for room/board (shared trailers or shacks), access to water/shared latrines, transportation to/from the fields and for the kids to/from school bus drops in remote areas, utilities, and so forth.

Think of company towns in the industrial Appalachian region in the 19th and 20th centuries and you'll see how unfair it is.

And I agree with the other poster -- don't make the mistaken assumption that "migrant" = "illegal." Most of my migrant students are U.S. citizens, but they either have an undocumented head of household, or the family is documented but too unskilled/uneducated to get other jobs. Fast food pays about the same, but you don't get out-of-season unemployment which allows you to get a secondary job and child care.

It's a commplex issue.

[Spiffarino]

39. The return of the Company Store

Now that most worker protections have disappeared, big industry bosses have free reign to get all they want and do as they please. But now that the Dems have a say, the tide is turning.

Yet one more reason we need a Democratic President.

[ingac70]

19. You are generally paid by the weight of what you pick...

you gotta work yourself to the bone to get $16.95.

[rcsl1998]

20. Please Have Him Define 'Average' nt

[PetraPooh]

22. Yeah, right, I find this very hard to believe. Teens would have loved to get that much pay.

[customerserviceguy]

28. Something just doesn't ring true here

I've never heard of farm labor paying even anywhere near ten bucks an hour, sounds like pure bullshit to me...

[Drifter]

31. I used to pick tomatoes ...

on my fathers farms. I was making about $5/hour in 1980. I would think that $15/hour now would be reasonable (although I have no idea what the gong rate is). We employed mostly high school aged kids.

It is hard work, no doubt. Which is the reason I went to college. I do miss the physical work now (but not the crappy pay).

BTW - this is in the Syracuse area

Cheers
Drifter

[curlyred]

47. I made $9 an hour in 1975

packing corn for one of the largest growers in Colorado.

[superconnected]

52. Very unbelievable. I bet this guy was going to retire and is now

making political statements for a large fee.

[TML]

36. A copout

Some jobs were not meant to pay high wages. This is one of them.

[rcsl1998]

5. "Can't Find Enough Workers" OR "Won't Pay Prevailing US Wages" ???

Anything to keep wages low...

[Tempest]

12. I'd like to see his financials

Let's see his net income from the last 5 years.

[SummerGrace]

17. Director at Nationwide

Keith W Eckel
Director at
Nationwide Financial Services, Inc.
Columbus, Ohio
FINANCIAL / LIFE INSURANCE
Director since May 2004

60 years old
Keith W. Eckel has been a director of Nationwide Financial since May 2004. He has served as a director of Nationwide Mutual and Nationwide Mutual Fire since 1996, Nationwide Corporation since 1998 and Nationwide Life and Nationwide Life and Annuity since May 2004. He served as the Chairman of the Board of NWD Management & Research Trust from June 2004 to May 2006, and served as a trustee of Nationwide Foundation from April 1998 to April 2006. Mr. Eckel is the owner of Fred W. Eckel Sons, a vegetable farming operation, and president of Eckel Farms, Inc.


http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/personinfo/FromPersonIdPersonTearsheet.jhtml?passedPersonId=917344

[Thickasabrick]

37. LOL...thank you - nice research - I wonder which party he has

contributed to???

[High Plains]

48. $16.59 an hour is low wages?

Maybe all those Americans are too busy sitting on their asses playing Nintendo.

[Purveyor]

6. I wasn't sure when I posted the article if they existed but there are indeed mechanical tomatos

pickers on the market.

I've read that in Europe, most crops are planted and picked mechanically.

Unless this guy still plows with mules, I think he is just looking for an excuse to capitalize on the surging price of easy grown grains, e.i. corn, wheat, soybeans, etc.

[peacetalksforall]

9. I can't believe all the assumptions that are made here without knowing the story.

I don't see anything in the article about this company paying too little.

I didn't see anything bout the guy chooseing to raise more profitiable grains.

The article says he says the guy ships to restaurants all over the northeast. It didn't say which kind, but what if it's three and four star - he may have a specialty business and is not going to harvest mechanically. If he ships to fast food restaurants and bars - he still may get quality.

The truth is that migrant means migrant - these people will travel for a job.

The person working at a Wendy's may not make much more, but it is prbably nearby and they need to live with someone to make ends meet. They are settled down.

Why can't people see that distinction.

They are more flexible and they don't mind taking on work that hurts their backs or demands less social mingling.

Some of our own people will do the job if they can afford to - roof over the head.

There are many side.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. I looked up where this town is

and it's just north of Scranton, PA, so it's not like the farm is out in the middle of nowhere. Scranton and the rest of that area is pretty industrialized.

There is the possibility that due to an interesting shift of NYC businesses to NE PA (much lower cost of living), some developer may have offered that farm some significant $$ for land.

[PetraPooh]

23. If you are suggesting he is crying one thing while something else is the truth,

I suspect you may be right. Sounds altogether fishy to me.

[gorbal]

26. And many of those jobs pay more than I make

I was looking at some that paid workers 10-14 an hour, not bad compared to other jobs. I do wonder how pro-active they are being about finding workers however.

[DeSwiss]

11. I found this interesting....

"Another potent subsidy item is university research, which is rarely if ever aimed at helping small farmers or local markets. Instead, it focuses on high-dollar technologies that benefit corporate agribusiness and do great harm to smaller producers and usually to the environment. For example, The Ecologist reports the case of a mechanical tomato picker that was developed at considerable public expense at the University of California. It greatly reduced labor costs for large tomato farmers, but its purchase price was so high that smaller growers could not afford to use it in their fields. "This one technology," says The Ecologist, "helped to consolidate California's 4,000 tomato farms into just 600 in about a decade." Taxpayers paid a little less for tomatoes at the market, but they also got to pay for some very expensive research. The 600 surviving companies got fatter and richer, but 3,400 smaller tomato farmers, not to mention innumerable laborers who were replaced by the picking machines, would be hard pressed to see the benefits of this publicly financed research."

http://www.purewatergazette.net/costoffood.htm

[Dr.Phool]

15. But, the variety of tomato that can be picked mechanically

Has the taste and texture of a tennis ball.

They have them down here in Florida, and they are the only ones the state allows for export. They look nice, perfectly round, red and shiny.

But they taste like shit.

[Spiffarino]

40. You are incorrect.

Shit has a flavor, as does a tennis ball. Those rock-hard tomatoes taste and smell like...nothing.

[pokercat999]

44. and they are put in the boxes for shipment a nice bright

GREEN color. When the arrive at the grocery store they are red......better living through chemistry as the tomatoes are fumigated on their ride to the super market.

[Moosepoop]

24. I think you're right.

From the article:

The acreage he previously devoted to tomatoes and pumpkins will be converted to field corn that is harvested by machines.

Another excerpt:

Though Eckel's tomato pickers made an average of $16.59 per hour last year, he said the relatively high wage is not enough to attract local labor to work the fields.

"A lot of people think with immigration that we're talking about immigrants taking jobs from others. Let me tell you, there is no local labor that is going to go out and harvest those tomatoes in 90-degree temperatures except our immigrant labor," Eckel said. "They come here to do a job that no one else will do in this country."

Something about John McCain and lettuce comes to mind...

[Donnachaidh]

43. Bet Mr *I can't find me no immigrants* is going into BIOFUEL production

Oh please cry me a river! :sarcasm:

He's switching to corn to make MOR money from his fields. Geez, I'm tired of the lying thieving bundles of BULLSHIT from these "FAKE PHARMERS". He makes his wages running an insurance company. Someone is in need of a Waahhhhhmbulance!

[Drifter]

33. The problem with mechanical ...

pickers is that you can only harvest once (everything ripe and green), because the machine destroys the vines. Very low yield, meaning you have to plant and farm many times more acreage, in order to get the quantity you need.

Tomatoes do not all ripen at the same time. Tomatoes that are picked green and allowed to ripen off the vine, can not be sold as choice.
A field that is picked by workers, can be picked up to 10 times, and then it can be opened to the public for "pick your own".

Cheers
Drifter

[BumRushDaShow]

13. What a disgrace.

Purveyor - I bet that what you said about switching up the crop is exactly what he is going to do.

And we complain about the kids sitting around all day in front of the video games or now texting when they could be making a little cash. Even if they did it for a couple hours a day. I wouldn't be surprised if he were lying about the wages.

I just got the last of my tomato seeds in and will be starting them this week. I grow my own (been doing it for 35 years) because the tomatoes are fresher, organic, and a helluva lot cheaper than the hard knots at the store. Will freeze the excess that isn't used right away. In fact, just cooked up the last of last year's harvest that was frozen to make sauce yesterday.

[Megahurtz]

32. Exactly.

The kids sitting around playing video games could be doing the jobs that the "migrant" workers are being paid shit pay to do.
But they can't get those jobs exactly because of that. :grr:

[bhikkhu]

42. Grow your own tastes so much better too

You might want to add...so many people nowadays have never had a tomato fresh from the garden, or tasted a variety not bred for shelf-life and bruise resistance. Sad.

[Highway61]

25. What a bunch of Bull

three words to get workers..."PAY THEM WELL". I work in recruiting and I called a very "well-to-do" Inn ( won't say where as It may be easy to guess and I don't want my ass in trouble.) They charge $250 -$400 a night. I called to see if I could recruit some help for them in the way of college students working their way through college...I was told "no thanks....we contract directly from the Dominican Republic!" So these bastards collect the $$$$ and WANT to ONLY pay scraps...The corporate elite suck!

[Megahurtz]

29. Maybe if they raised their shit wages

they would find plenty of people! :think:

[High Plains]

49. $16.59 an hour. That's shit wages?

[Megahurtz]

50. You ACTUALLY BELIEVE

that this guy is paying migrant workers $16.59 an hour to pick tomatoes? :eyes:

[DAMANgoldberg]

34. K&R

Since the farm is in Clarks Summit, I do believe that he must have gotten developer offers for his land, after all, it's only 2.5 hrs from NYC and 1.5 hrs from NNJ. Now if he was in Milford or Mifflntown or Lamar (other NE PA 570 towns) or in most of the 814 (Altoona, Johnstown, State College, etc) a different story as there would be locals that would do the work for even $7/hr.

[appleannie1]

35. Local kids around here earn money by picking strawberries first and then

as other crops ripen, pick them. Have they tried to find American workers? Besides, the migrants have moved on to bigger and better things. They found out they could earn more in construction and restaurant work.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tight_rope]

51. Damn...the cost of pizza and spagetti sauce is going to be jack high