Farmers worry about securing workers for harvest

Cherries are starting to blush red in California's warm southern reaches, but farmers are eyeing the first big summer crop with concern, unsure if they'll have enough hands for the harvest.

In recent years, growers in America's most bountiful farmland have watched tighter border enforcement and competition from the booming construction industry threaten their labor supply.

The building bubble has burst, but will laborers come back to lower-paying, backbreaking jobs in the fields? Growers are doubtful.

"We're hoping they'll show up," said Bruce Fry, whose Bing cherries near Lodi, Calif., are starting to turn from straw yellow to the first pale shades of red.

His family has worked the land since 1855, and seasonal workers have always returned for the harvest in mid-May after the long growing period when they're not needed. Fry believes he might attract enough workers, but the number of people who come by looking for jobs is dwindling.

California harvests about half the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables — a massive undertaking that requires about 225,000 workers year-round — double that during the peak summer season. More than half are immigrants who cross the Mexican border illegally and travel from field to field picking some 400 different crops that each ripen at different times.

Last year, that seasonal migration was marked by spot worker shortages, and some fruit was left to rot in the fields.

President Bush's plan to secure the border relies on raising the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents from about 12,000 to 18,000 by the end of 2008, which would further limit the number of immigrant workers who can reach the farm jobs waiting for them.

The labor pool has been further diminished by the exploding Central Valley real estate market of recent years. Former farm fields have sprouted subdivisions, and tiny rural hamlets have transformed into sprawling suburbs.

Wenceslau Covarubias, who doubled his salary to $15 when he left the fields three years ago to help build homes, isn't going back.

"You can't go backward in life," he said. "In construction, I can learn more, I can keep going up."

He traded his aging Honda for a new Ford Explorer, learned to lay cement for home foundations and do detailed tilework. These are skills he's proud of.