“But if they do nothing with it, if they don’t change it or improve it at all, I’m just not sure how it’s possible to get the workers that we need.”įor Quiring, 12-month availability through the program is key. “If the government will expand and improve the guest worker program, agriculture will take off for the U.S.,” Quiring said. He hopes that the upcoming Farm Bill can ease the labor issue. Labor accounts for 28% of the cost of goods for the company, compared to 14% for electricity and water, 7% for heating, 5.5% for shipping containers and 4% for plants and seeds, Quiring said. Particularly productive employees can make up to $18 an hour, he said. In Ohio, where the minimum wage is $8.15 an hour, NatureFresh starts employees at $13.25 an hour for crop work. Quiring disputes the notion that more Americans would work in fields and greenhouses if only companies paid more. With domestic labor scarce, use of the H-2A program in the state of Washington has grown dramatically in the last decade, from less than 1,000 workers in 2006 to nearly 14,000 in 2016, according to the Washington State Tree Fruit Commission. The American Mushroom Institute recently mentioned labor shortages as a factor in decreased production in the 2016-17 season, and Northwest pear grower-shippers have commented that shortages have sometimes meant being unable to run certain shifts in packing facilities or harvest fruit during the ideal window. “This is a coast-to-coast, border-to-border problem.” “It’s not a NatureFresh problem, it’s not an Ohio problem,” Quiring said.
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